LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


kiUSfJ^ 


<sl-.^   .-, 


/  a 


GL  AUCUS; 


OB, 


THE    WONDERS    OF    THE    SHORE. 


GLAUCUS; 


OR, 


THE  WO^^DERS  OF  THE  SHORE, 


BY 


CHARLES   KINGSLEY, 

AVTIIOR  OF   "AMYAS   LEIGH,"    "  JIYPATIA,"    ETC. 


BOSTON: 
TICK  NO  11    AND     FIELDS 


M  DCCC  LV. 


QrS3 


CAMBRIDGE: 
METCALF  AND   COMPANY,    PRINTERS   TO  THE  UNIVERSITY. 


DEDICATION. 

My  dear  Miss  Grexfell, 
I  CANNOT  forego  the  pleasure  of  dedicating 
this  little  book  to  you ;  excepting  of  course  the 
opening  exhortation  (needless  enough  in  your 
case)  to  those  who  have  not  yet  discovered  the 
value  of  Natural  History.  Accept  it  as  a  me- 
morial of  pleasant  hours  spent  by  us  already, 
and  as  an  earnest,  I  trust,  of  pleasant  hours  to 
be  spent  hereafter  (perhaps,  too,  beyond  lliis  life 
in  the  nobler  world  to  come)  in  examining  to- 
gether the  works  of  our  Father  in  Heaven. 
Yours  ever  gratefully  and  faillilully, 

<•    KIKGSLEY. 

BiDEFORD,  Ajiril  24,  1855. 


Beyond  the  shadow  of  the  ship 

I  watched  the  watcr-snakcs : 

They  moved  in  tracks  of  shining  white, 

And  when  they  reared,  the  elfin  light 

Fell  off  in  hoary  flakes. 

0  happy  living  things  !  no  tongue 
Their  beauty  miglit  declare : 
A  spring  of  love  gushed  from  ny  heart, 
And  I  blessed  them  unaware. 

Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner. 


GLAUCUS; 

OR, 

THE  WONDERS  OF  THE   SHORE. 


You  are  going  down,  perhaps,  by  railway,  to 
pass  your  usual  six  weeks  at  some  watering-place 
along  the  coast,  and  as  you  roll  along  think  more 
than  once,  and  that  not  over  cheerfully,  of  what 
you  shall  do  when  you  got  there.  You  arc  lialf- 
tired,  half-a.shamcd,  of  making  one  more  in  the 
"  ignohle  army  of  idlers,"  who  saunter  about  the 
dills,  and  sands,  and  rpiays  ;  to  whom  every 
wharf  is  but  a  *'  wharf  of  Lethe,"  by  which  they 
rot  "dull  as  the  oozy  weed."  You  foreknow 
your  doom  by  sail  experience.  A  great  deal  of 
dressing,  a  lounge  in  the  club-room,  a  stare  out 
of  the  window  with  the  telescope,  an  attempt  to 
take  a  bad  ekctcli,  a  walk  up  one  parade  and 
down  another,  interminable  reading  of  the  silliest 
1 


2  GLAucus  ;  on, 

of  novels,  over  ■which  you  fall  asleep  on  a  bench 
in  the  sun,  and  probably  have  your  umbrella 
stolen ;  a  purposeless  fine-weather  sail  in  a  yacht, 
accompanied  by  ineffectual  attempts  to  catch  a 
mackerel,  and  the  consumption  of  many  cigars  ; 
while  your  boys  deafen  your  ears,  and  endanger 
your  personal  safety,  by  blazing  away  at  inno- 
cent gulls  and  willocks,  who  go  off  to  die  slowly, 
a  sport  which  you  feel  in  your  heart  to  be 
wanton,  and  cowardly,  and  cruel,  and  yet  cannot 
find  in  your  heart  to  stop,  because  "  the  lads 
have  nothing  else  to  do,  and  at  all  events  it 
keeps  them  out  of  the  billiard-room " ;  and 
after  all,  and  worst  of  all,  at  night  a  soulless 
rechauffe  of  third-rate  London  frivolity ;  this  is 
the  life-in-death  in  which  thousands  spend  the 
golden  weeks  of  summer,  and  in  which  you 
confess  with  a  sigh  that  you  are  going  to  spend 
them. 

Now  I  will  not  be  so  rude  as  to  apply  to  you 
the  old  hymn-distich  about  one  who 

"  Finds  some  mischief  still 
For  idle  hands  to  do  " : 

but  does  it  not  seem  to  you,  that  there  must 
surely  be  many-  a  thing  worth  looking  at  ear- 


THE    AVOXDEKS    OF    THE    SHORE.  o 

nestly,  and  thinking  over  earnestly,  in  a  world 
like  this,  about  the  making  of  the  least  part 
whereof  God  has  employed  ages  and  ages, 
further  back  than  wisdom  can  guess  or  ima<Ti- 
nation  picture,  and  upholds  that  least  part  every 
moment  by  laws  and  forces  so  complex  and  so 
wonderful,  that  science,  when  it  tries  to  fiithom 
them,  can  only  learn  how  little  it  can  learn  ? 
And  does  it  not  seem  to  you  that  six  weeks' 
rest,  free  from  the  cares  of  town  business,  and 
the  whirlwind  of  town  pleasure,  could  not  be 
better  spent  than  in  examining  those  wonders 
a  little,  instead  of  wandering  up  and  down  like 
the  many,  still  wrapt  up  each  in  their  little  world 
of  vanity  and  self-interest,  unconscious  of  what 
and  where  they  really  are,  as  they  gaze  lazily 
around  at  earth  and  sea  and  sky,  and  have 

"No  speculation  in  those  eyes 
Wliich  tlicy  do  glare  witlial"? 

Why  not,  tlicn,  ti-y  to  discover  a  lew  of  the 
"Wonders  of  tlie  Shore  ?  For  wonders  there  arc 
there  around  you  at  every  step,  stranger  than 
ever  opium-eater  dreamed,  and  yet  to  be  seen 
at  no  greater  expense  tlian  a  very  litllc  time 
and  trouble. 


4  GLAUCUS  ;    OK, 

Perhaps  you  smile  in  answer,  at  the  notion 
of  becoming  a  "  Naturalist " :  and  yet  you  can- 
not deny  that  there  must  be  a  fascination  in 
the  study  of  natural  history,  though  what  it  is 
is  as  yet  unknown  to  you.  Your  daughters, 
perhaps,  have  been  seized  with  the  prevailing 
"  Ptei'idomania,"  and  are  collecting  and  buying 
ferns,  with  Ward's  cases  wherein  to  keep  them, 
(for  which  you  have  to  pay,)  and  wrangling  over 
unpronounceable  names  of  species,  (which  seem 
to  be  diflercnt  in  each  ncAv  Fern-book  that  they 
buy,)  till  the  Pteridomania  seems  to  you  some- 
what of  a  bore :  and  yet  you  cannot  deny  that 
they  find  an  enjoyment  in  it,  and  are  more  active, 
more  cheerful,  more  self-forgetful  pver  it,  than 
they  would  have  been  over  novels  and  gossip, 
crochet  and  Berlin-wool.  At  least  you  will 
confess  that  the  abomination  ef  "  Fancy  work," 
that  standing  cloak  for  dreamy  idleness,  (not 
to  mention  the  injury  which  it  does  to  poor 
starving  needlewomen,)  has  all  but  vanished 
from  your  drawing-room  since  the  "  Lady-ferns  " 
and  "  Venus's  hair "  appeared ;  and  that  you 
could  not  help  yourself  looking  now  and  then 
at  the  said  "  Venus's  hair,"  and  agreeing  that 
nature's  real   beauties  were  somewhat  suj)erior 


THE    "WONDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  O 

to  .the  ghastly  woollen  caricatures  which  they  had 
superseded. 

You  cannot  deny,  I  say,  that  there  is  a  fasci- 
nation in  this  same  Natural  History.  For  do 
not  you,  the  London  merchant,  recollect  how  but 
last  summer  your  douce  and  portly  head-clerk 
was  seized  by  two  keepers  in  the  act  of  wander- 
ing in  Epping  Forest  at  dead  of  night,  with  a 
dark  lantern,  a  jar  of  strange  sweet  compound, 
and  innumerable  pocketsful  of  pill-boxes ;  and 
found  it  very  difficult  to  make  cither  his  captors 
or  you  believe  that  he  was  neither  going  to  burn 
wheat-ricks,  or  poison  pheasants,  but  was  simply 
"  sugaring  the  trees  for  moths,"  as  a  blameless 
entomologist?  And  when,  in  self-justification, 
he  took  you  to  his  house  in  Islington,  and 
showed  you  the  glazed  and  corked  drawers  full 
of  dflicate  insects,  which  had  evidently  cost  him 
in  the  collecting  the  spare  hours  of  many  busy 
years,  and  many  a  pound  too,  out  of  his  small 
salary,  were  you  not  a  little  puzzled  to  make  out 
wliat  spell  there  could  be  in  those  "useless" 
moths,  to  draw  out  of  his  warm  bed,  twenty 
miles  down  the  ICastern  Counties  Kailway,  and 
into  the  damp  forest  like  a  decr-stcaler,  a  sober 
white-headed  Tim  Linkinwater  like   him,   your 


b  GLAUCDS  ;    OR, 

very  best  man  of  business,  given  to  the  readuig 
of  Scotch  political  economy,  and  gifted  Avith 
peculiarly  clear  notions  on  the  currency  ques- 
tion ?   . 

It  is  puzzling,  truly.  I  shall  be  very  glad  if 
these  pages  help  you  somewhat  toward,  solving 
the  puzzle. 

"We  shall  agree  at  least  that  the  study  of 
Natural  History  has  become  now-a-days  an 
honorable  one.  A  Cromarty  stone-mason  is 
now  perhaps  the  most  important  man  in  the 
city  of  Edinburgh,  by  dint  of  a  work  on  fos- 
sil fishes  ;  and  the  successful  investigator  of 
the  minutest  animals  takes  place  unquestioned 
among  men  of  genius,  and,  like  the  philosopher 
of  old  Greece,  is  considered,  by  virtue  of  his 
science,  fit  company  for  dukes  and  princes.  Nay, 
the  study  is  now  more  than  honorable ;  it  is 
(what  to  many  readers  will  be  a  far  higher 
recommendation)  even  fashionable.  Every  well- 
educated  person  is  eager  to  know  something 
at  least  of  the  wonderful  organic  forms  which 
surround  him  in  every  sunbeam  and  every 
pebble  ;  and  books  of  Natural  History  are 
finding  their  way  more  and  more  into  drawing- 
rooms  and    school-room?,   and    exciting    greater 


THE    "WONDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  7 

thirst  for  a  knowledge  which,  even  twenty  years 
ago,  was  considered  superfluous  for  all  but  the 
professional  student. 

What  a  change  from  the  temper  of  t\yo  gen- 
erations since,  when  the  naturalist  was  looked 
on  as  a  harmless  enthusiast,  who  went  "  bug- 
hunting,"  simply  because  he  had  not  spirit  to 
follow  a  fox!  There  are  those  alive  who  can 
recollect  an  amiable  man  being  literally  bullied 
out  of  the  Tsew  Forest,  because  ho  dared  to 
make  a  collection  (at  this  moment,  we  believe, 
in  some  unknown  abyss  of  that  great  Avernus, 
the  British  Museum)  of  fossil  shells  from  those 
very  Ilordlc  Cliffs,  for  exploring  which  there  is 
now  established  a  society  of  subscribers  and  cor- 
respondents. They  can  remember,  too,  when,  on 
the  first  appearance  of  Bewick's  "  British  Birds," 
the  excellent  sportsman  who  brought  it  down 
to  the  Forest  was  asked,  "Why  on  oartli  he  had 
bought  a  book  about  "  cock-sparrows  "  ?  and  liad 
to  justify  himself  again  and  a'^ain,  simply  by 
lending  the  book  to  his  brother  sp(jrtsmon,  to 
convince  tliem  that  there  were  rafiif-r  more  than 
a  dozen  sorts  of  birds  (as  they  tlicn  held)  indi- 
genous to  Ilampsliire.  But  the  book,  perhaps, 
which  turned  the  tide  in  favcr  of  Natural  His- 


8  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

tory,  among  the  liiglier  classes  at  least,  in  the 
South  of  England,  was  White's  "  History  of  Scl- 
bourne."  A  Hampshire  gentleman  and  sports- 
man, whom  everybody  knew,  had  taken  the 
trouble  to  write  a  book  about  the  birds  and  the 
weeds  in  his  own  parish,  and  the  every-day  things 
which  went  on  under  his  eyes,  and  every  one 
else's.  And  all  gentlemen,  from  the  Weald  of 
Kent  to  the  Vale  of  Blackmore,  shrugged  their 
shoulders  mysteriously,  and  said,  "  Poor  fellow!" 
till  they  opened  the  book  itself,  and  discovered 
to  their  surprise  that  it  read  like  any  novel. 
And  then  came  a  burst  of  confused,  but  honest 
admiration ;  from  the  young  squire's  "  Bless  me  ! 
who  would  have  thought  that  there  were  so  many 
wonderful  things  to  be  seen  in  one's  own  park  !  " 
to  the  old  squire's  more  morally  valuable  "  Bless 
me !  why  I  have  seen  that  and  that  a  hundred 
times,  and  never  thought  till  now  how  wonderful 
they  were ! " 

There  were  great  excuses,  though,  of  old,  for 
the  contempt  in  which  the  naturalist  was  held ; 
great  excuses  for  the  pitying  tone  of  banter  with 
which  the  Spectator  talks  of  "  the  ingenious " 
Don  Saltero  (as  no  doubt  the  Neapolitan  gen- 
tlemen talked  of  Ferrante  Imperato  the  apoth- 


THE  AVOXDERS  OF  THE  SHORE.       \) 

ecary,  and  his  museum)  ;  great  excuses  for  Vol- 
taire, when  he  classes  the  collection  of  butterflies 
among  the  other  "  bigarrures  de  I'esprit  humain." 
For,  in  the  last  generation,  the  needs  of  the 
world  Avere  different.  It  had  no  time  for  butter- 
flies and  fossils.  "While  Buonaparte  was  hover- 
ing on  the  Boulogne  coast,  the  pursuits  and  the 
education  which  were  needed  were  such  as 
would  raise  up  men  to  fight  him  ;  so  the  coarse, 
fierce,  hard-handed  training  of  our  grandfathers 
came  when  it  was  wanted,  and  did  the  work 
which  was  required  of  it,  else  we  had  not  been 
here  now.  Let  us  be  thankful  that  we  have 
had  leisure  for  science ;  and  show  now  in  war 
that  our  science  has  at  least  not  unmanned  us. 

Moreover,  Natural  History,  if  not  fifty  years 
ago,  certainly  a  hundred  years  ago,  was  hard- 
ly worlhy  of  men  of  practical  common  sense. 
After,  indeed,  Linnc',  by  his  invention  of  ge- 
neric and  specific  names,  had  made  classification 
possible,  and  by  liis  own  enormous  labors  had 
shown  liow  much  could  be  done  wlicii  once  a 
method  was  esfa])lislied,  the  science  has  grown 
ra[)idly  enough.  But  before  him  little  or  noth- 
ing lia<l  been  put  into  form  definite  enough 
to  allure  tlioso  wlio  (as  tlic  many  always  will) 


10  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

prefer  to  profit  by  others'  discoveries,  than  to 
discover  for  themselves  ;  and  Natural  History 
was  attractive  only  to  a  few  earnest  seekers,  who 
found  too  much  trouble  in  disencumbering  their 
own  minds  of  the  dreams  of  bygone  generations, 
(whether  facts,  like  cockatrices,  basilisks,  and 
krakens,  the  breeding  of  bees  out  of  a  dead  ox, 
and  of  geese  from  barnacles,  or  theories,  like 
those  of  the  four  elements,  the  vis  plastrix  in 
Nature,  animal  spirits,  and  the  other  musty 
heirlooms  of  Aristotleism  and  Neo-Platonisra,) 
to  try  to  make  a  science  popular,  which  as  yet 
was  not  even  a  science  at  all.  Honor  to  them, 
nevertheless.  Honor  to  Ray  and  his  illustrious 
contemporaries  in  Holland  and  France.  Honor 
to  Seba  and  Aldrovandus  ;  to  Pomet,  with  his 
"  Historie  of  Driigges  " ;  even  to  the  ingenious 
Don  Saltero,  and  his  tavern-museum  in  Cheyne 
Walk.  Where  all  was  chaos,  every  man  was 
useful  who  could  contribute  a  single  spot  of 
organized  standing-ground  in  the  shape  of  a  fact 
or  a  specimen.  But  it  is  a  question  whether 
Natural  History  would  have  ever  attained  its 
present  honors,  had  not  Geology  arisen,  to  con- 
nect every  otlier  branch  of  Natural  History  with 
problems  as  vast  and  awful  as  they  ai'e  captivat- 


TUE    WONDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  11 

ing  to  the  imagination.  Nay,  the  very  opposition 
with  which  Geology  met  was  of  as  great  benefit 
to  the  sister  sciences  as  to  itself.  For,  when 
questions  belonging  to  the  most  sacred  hereditary 
beliefs  of  Christendom  were  supposed  to  be 
affected  by  the  verification  of  a  fossil  shell,  or 
the  proving  that  the  Maestricht  "  homo  diluvii 
testis  "  was,  after  all,  a  monstrous  eft,  it  became 
necessary  to  work  upon  Conchology,  Botany,  and 
Comparative  Anatomy,  with  a  care  and  a  rev- 
erence, a  caution  and  a  severe  induction,  which 
had  been  never  before  applied  to  them  ;  and  thus 
gradually,  in  the  last  half-century,  the  whole  choir 
of  cosmical  sciences  have  acquired  a  soundness, 
severity,  and  fulness,  which  render  them,  as 
mere  intellectual  exercises,  as  valuable  to  a  man- 
ly mind  as  Mathematics  and  Metaphysics. 

But  how  very  lately  have  they  attained  that 
firm  and  honorable  standinjr-crround !  It  is  a 
question,  whether,  even  twenty  years  ago,  Geol- 
ogy, Jts  it  then  stood,  was  worth  troubling  one's 
head  about,  so  little  had  been  really  proved. 
And  heavy  and  up-hill  was  the  work,  even  with- 
in the  last  fifteen  years,  of  those  who  stead- 
fastly set  themselves  lo  the  task  of  proving,  and 
of  asserting    at   all    ri?ks,    that    the    ]\Iaker    of 


12  GLAUCUS;   OR, 

the  coal  seam  and  the  diluvial  cave  could  not 
be  a  "  Deus  quidam  deceptor,"  and  that  the  facts 
which  the  rocks  and  the  silt  revealed  were  sa- 
cred, not  to  be  warped  or  trifled  with  for  the 
sake  of  any  cowardly  and  hasty  notion  that  they 
contradicted  His  other  messages.  When  a  few 
more  years  are  past,  Buckland  and  Sedgwick, 
Lyell  and  Jamieson,  and  the  group  of  brave  men 
who  accompanied  and  followed  them,  will  be 
looked  back  to  as  moral  benefactors  to  their 
race  ;  and  almost  as  martyrs,  also,  when  it  is  re- 
membered how  much  misunderstanding,  obloquy, 
and  plausible  folly  they  had  to  endure  from  well- 
meaning  fanatics  like  Fairholme  or  Granville 
Penn,  and  the  respectable  mob  at  their  heels, 
who  tried  (as  is  the  fashion  in  such  cases)  to 
make  a  hollow  compromise  between  fact  and  the 
Bible,  by  twisting  facts  just  enough  to  make  them 
fit  the  fancied  meaning  of  the  Bible,  and  the 
Bible  just  enough  to  make  it  fit  the  fancied 
meaning  of  the  facts.  But  there  were  a  few 
who  would  have  no  compromise ;  who  labored 
on  with  a  noble  recklessness,  determined  to 
speak  the  thing  which  they  had  seen,  and 
neither  more  nor  less,  sure  that  God  could 
take  better   care  than   they   of  His   own  ever- 


THE    AVOXDEUS    01--    THE    SHORE.  13 

lasting  truth ;  and  now  they  have  conquered ; 
the  facts  which  were  twenty  years  ago  denounced 
as  contrary  to  Revelation,  are  at  last  accepted 
not  merely  as  consonant  with,  but  as  corrobo- 
rative thereof;  and  sound  practical  geologists, 
like  Hugh  Miller,  in  his  "  Footprints  of  the 
Creator,"  and  Professor  Sedgwick,  in  the  inval- 
uable notes  to  his  "  Discourse  on  the  Studies  of 
Cambridge,"  are  wielding  in  defence  of  Chris- 
tianity the  very  science  which  was  faithlessly 
and  cowardly  expected  to  subvert  it. 

But  if  you  seek,  reader,  rather  for  pleasure 
than  for  wisdom,  you  can  find  it  in  such  studies, 
pure  and  undofiled. 

Happy,  truly,  is  the  naturalist.  He  has  no 
time  for  melancholy  dreams.  The  earth  becomes 
to  him  transparent;  everywhere  he  sees  signifi- 
cances, harmonics,  laws,  chains  of  cause  and 
effect  endlessly  interlinked,  which  draw  him 
out  of  the  narrow  sphere  of  self-interest  and 
self-plca.>ing,  into  a  pure  and  wholesome  region 
of  Folenin  joy  and  wonder.  He  goes  up  some 
Snowdon  valley  ;  to  him  it  is  a  solemn  spot 
(though  unnoticed  by  his  companions),  where 
the  ptag's-horn  club-moss  ceases  to  straggle 
across    the    turf,   and    the    tufted    alpine    club- 


14  GLAUCUS ;    OR, 

moss  takes  its  place  ;  for  lie  is  now  in  a  new 
world ;  a  region  whose  climate  is  eternally  influ- 
enced by  some  fresh  law  (after  which  he  vainly 
guesses  with  a  sigh  at  his  own  ignorance)  which 
renders  life  imjiossible  to  one  species,  possible 
to  another.  And  it  is  a  still  more  solemn 
thought  to  hira,  that  it  was  not  always  so ;  that 
ccons  and  ages  back,  that  rock  which  he  passed 
a  thousand  feet  below  was  fringed,  not  as  now 
with  fern,  and  blue  bugle,  and  white  bramble- 
ilowers,  but  perhaps  with  the  alp-rose  and  the 
"  gemsen-kraut "  of  Mont  Blanc,  at  least  with 
Alpine  Saxifrages  which  have  now  retreated  fif- 
teen hundred  feet  up  the  mountain-side,  and  with 
the  blue  Snow-Gentian,  and  the  Canadian  Ledum, 
which  have  all  but  vanished  out  of  the  British 
Isles.  And  what  is  it  which  tells  him  that 
strange  story  ?  Yon  smoothed  and  rounded  sur- 
face of  rock,  polished,  remark,  across  the  strata, 
and  against  the  grain ;  and  furrowed  here  and 
there,  as  if  by  iron  talons,  with  long  parallel 
scratches.  It  was  the  crawling  of  a  glacier 
which  polished  that  rock-face ;  the  stones  fallen 
from  Snowdon  peak  into  the  half-liquid  lake  of 
ice  above,  which  ploughed  those  furrows.  JEons 
and  a;ons  ago,  before  the  time  when  Adam  first 


THK    AVOXDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  lo 

"  Embraced  his  Eve  in  happy  hour, 
And  every  bird  of  Eden  burst 
In  carol,  everj'  bud  in  flower," 

those  marks  were  there ;  the  records  of  the  "Age 
of  ice  " ;  slight  truly ;  to  be  effaced  by  the  next 
farmer  who  needs  to  build  a  wall ;  but  unmis- 
takable, boundless  in  significance,  like  Crusoe's 
one  savage  footprint  on  the  sea-shore :  and  the 
naturalist  acknowledges  the  finger-mark  of  God, 
and  wonders,  and  worships. 

Happy,  especially,  is  the  sportsman  Avho  is 
also  a  naturalist:  for  as  he  roves  in  pursuit  of 
his  game,  over  hills  or  up  the  beds  of  streams 
where  no  one  but  a  sportsman  ever  thinks  of 
going,  he  will  be  certain  to  sec  tilings  note- 
worthy, wliich  tlie  mere  naturalist  would  never 
find,  simply  because  he  could  never  guess  that 
they  were  there  to  be  found.  I  do  not  speak 
merely  of  the  rare  birds  which  may  be  shot,  the 
curious  facts  as  to  the  habits  of  fish  which  may 
be  observed,  great  as  these  pleasures  arc.  I 
speak  of  (he  scenery,  the  weather,  the  geological 
formation  nf  the  country,  its  vegetation,  and  the 
living  habits  of  its  denizens.  A  sportsman  out 
in  all  weathers,  and  often  dependent  for  success 
on  liis  knowledge  of  "  what  the  sky  is  going  to 


16  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

do,"  has  opportunities  for  becoming  a  meteo- 
rologist -which  no  one  beside  but  a  sailor  pos- 
sesses ;  and  one  has  often  longed  for  a  scientific 
gamekeeper  or  huntsman,  who,  by  discovering  a 
law  for  the  mysterious  and  seemingly  capricious 
phenomena  of  "  scent,"  might  perhaps  throw 
light  on  a  hundred  dark  passages  of  hygrome- 
try.  The  fisherman,  too,  —  what  an  inexhaustible 
treasury  of  wonders  lies  at  his  feet,  in  the  sub- 
aqueous world  of  the  commonest  mountain  burn  ! 
All  the  laws  which  mould  a  world  are  there  busy, 
if  he  but  knew  it,  fattening  his  trout  for  him,  and 
making  them  rise  to  the  fly,  by  strange  electric 
influences,  at  one  hour  rather  than  at  another. 
Many  a  good  geognostic  lesson  too,  both  as  to 
the  nature  of  a  country's  rocks,  and  as  to  the 
laws  by  which  strata  are  deposited,  may  an  ob- 
serving man  learn  as  he  wades  up  the  bed  of  a 
trout-stream ;  not  to  mention  the  strange  forms 
and  habits  of  the  tribes  of  water-insects.  More- 
over no  good  fisherman  but  knows  to  his  sorrow, 
that  there  are  plenty  of  minutes,  ay,  hours,  in 
each  day's  fishing,  in  which  he  would  be  right 
glad  of  any  employment  better  than  trying  to 

"  Call  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep," 
who  will  not 


THE    WONDERS    OF   THE    SIIOKE.  17 

"  Come  when  you  do  call  for  them." 
What  to  do  then?     You  are  sitting,  perhaps, 
in  your  coracle,  upon  some  mountain  tai'n,  wait- 
ing for  a  wind,  and  waiting  in  vain. 

"  Keine  luft  an  keine  seite, 
Todes-stille  furchterlich  " ; 

As  Gothe  has  it,  — 

"  Und  der  schiffer  sieht  bekummert 
Glatte  flache  rings  umher." 

You  paddle  to  the  shore  on  the  side  whence 
the  wind  ought  to  come,  if  it  had  any  spirit 
in  it  ;  tie  the  coracle  to  a  stone,  light  your 
cigar,  lie  down  on  your  back  upon  the  grass, 
grumble,  and  finally  fall  asleep.  In  the  mean 
while,  probably,  the  breeze  has  come  on,  and 
there  has  been  half  an  hour's  lively  fishing  curl  ; 
and  you  wake  just  in  time  to  see  the  last  ripple 
of  it  sneaking  off  at  the  other  side  of  the  lake, 
leaving  all  as  dead  calm  as  before. 

Now  how  much  better,  instead  of  fallinEC 
a.'*leep,  to  have  walked  quietly  round  the  lake- 
side, and  asked  of  your  own  l)rains  and  of 
nature  the  question,  "  How  did  this  lake  come 
here?     What  does  it  mean?" 

It  is  a  hole  in  the  earth.  True,  but  how  was 
the  hole  made  ?  There  must  have  been  huge 
2 


18  GLAUCUS  ;   Oil, 

forces  at  work  to  form  such  a  cliasm.  Probably 
the  mountain  was  actually  opened  from  within  by 
an  earthquake,  and  when  the  strata  fell  together 
again,  the  portion  at  either  end  of  the  chasm, 
being  perhaps  crushed  together  with  greater 
force,  remained  higher  than  the  centre,  and  so 
the  water  lodged  between  them.  Perhaps  it 
was  formed  thus.  You  will  at  least  agree  that 
its  formation  must  have  been  a  grand  sight 
enough,  and  one  during  which  a  spectator  would 
have  had  some  difficulty  in  keeping  his  footing. 

And  when  you  learn  that  this  convulsion  prob- 
ably took  place  at  the  bottom  of  an  ocean,  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  years  ago,  you  have  at 
least  a  few  thoughts  over  which  to  ruminate, 
which  Avill  make  you  at  once  too  busy  to  grum- 
ble, and  ashamed  to  grumble. 

Yet  after  all,  I  hardly  think  the  lake  was 
formed  in  this  way,  and  suspect  that  it  may  have 
been  dry  land  for  ages  after  it  emerged  from  the 
primeval  waves,  and  Snowdonia  was  a  palm- 
fringed  island  in  a  tropic  sea.  Let  us  look  the 
place  over  more  carefully. 

You  see  the  lake  is  nearly  circular ;  on  the 
side  where  we  stand,  the  pebbly  beach  is  not  six 
feet  above  the  water,  and  slopes  away  steeply 


THE    WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  19 

into  the  valley  behind  us,  while  before  us,  it 
shelves  gradually  into  the  lake ;  forty  yards  out, 
;i3  you  know,  there  is  not  ten  feet  water ; 
and  then  a  steep  bank,  the  edge  whereof  we 
and  the  big  trout  know  well,  sinks  suddenly  to 
unknown  depths.  On  the  opposite  side,  that 
vast  flat-topped  wall  of  rock  towers  up  shore- 
less into  the  sky,  seven  hundred  feet  perpendic- 
ular; the  deepest  water  of  all,  we  know,  is  at 
its  very  foot.  Right  and  left,  two  shoulders 
of  down  slope  into  the  lake.  Now  turn  round 
and  look  down  the  gorge.  Kemark  that  this 
pebble-bank  on  which  we  stand  reaches  some 
fifty  yards  downward :  you  see  the  loose  stones 
peeping  out  everywhere.  "VVe  may  fairly  sup- 
pose that  we  stand  on  a  dam  of  loose  stones,  a 
hundred  feet  deep. 

But  why  loose  stones  ?  —  and  if  so,  what 
matter,  and  wliat  wonder?  There  are  rocks 
cropping  out  everywhere  down  the  hill-side. 

Because  if  you  will  take  up  one  of  these 
stones  and  crack  it  across,  you  will  sec  that 
it  t6  not  of  tlie  same  stuff  as  those  said 
rocks.  Step  into  the  next  field  and  see.  That 
rock  is  the  common  Snowdon  slate,  which  wo 
see  everywhere.     The   two   slioulders  of  down. 


20  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

right  and  left,  are  slate  too ;  you  can  see  that 
at  a  glance.  But  tlie  stones  of  the  pebble- 
bank  are  a  close-grained,  yellow-spotted  rock. 
They  are  Syenite ;  and  (you  may  believe  me 
or  not,  as  you  will)  they  were  once  upon  a  time 
in  the  condition  of  hasty-pudding  heated  to  some 
800  degrees  of  Fahrenheit,  and  in  that  condition 
shoved  their  way  up  somewhere  or  other  through 
these  slates.  But  where  ?  whence  on  earth  did 
these  Syenite  pebbles  come  ?  Let  us  walk  round 
to  the  cliff  on  the  opposite  side,  and  see.  It  is 
worth  while ;  for  even  if  my  guess  be  wrong, 
there  is  good  spinning  with  a  brass  minnow  round 
the  angles  of  the  rocks. 

Now  see.  Between  the  cliff-foot  and  the  slop- 
ing down  is  a  crack,  ending  in  a  gully;  the  nearer 
side  is  of  slate,  and  the  further  side,  the  cliff 
itself,  is  —  why,  the  whole  cliff  is  composed  of 
the  very  same  stone  as  the  pebble  ridge  ! 

Now,  my  good  friend,  how  did  those  pebbles 
get  three  hundred  yards  across  the  lake  ?  Hun- 
dreds of  tons,  some  of  them  three  feet  lone : 
who  carried  them  across  ?  The  old  Cymry  were 
not  likely  to  amuse  themselves  by  making  such 
a  breakwater  up  here  in  No-man's-land,  two 
thousand  feet  above  the  sea:  but  somebody,  or 


TOE    -SVONDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  21 

something,  must  Lave  carried  them  ;  for  stones 
do  not  fly,  nor  swim  either. 

Shot  out  of  a  volcano?  As  you  seem  deter- 
mined to  have  a  prodigy,  it  may  as  well  be  a 
sufficiently  huge  one. 

"Well  —  these  stones  lie  all  together ;  and  a 
volcano  would  have  hai-dly  made  so  compact  a 
shot,  not  being  in  the  habit  of  using  Ely's  wire 
cartridges.  Our  next  hope  of  a  solution  lies  in 
John  Jones,  who  cai'ried  up  the  coracle.  Hail 
him,  and  ask  him  what  is  on  the  top  of  that 
cliff.  .  .  So?  "Plainshc  and  pogshe,  and  another 
Llyn."  Very  good.  Now,  does  it  not  strike  you 
that  this  whole  cliff  has  a  remarkably  smooth 
and  plastered  look,  like  a  hare's  run  up  an  earth- 
bank  ?  And  do  you  sec  that  it  is  polished  thus, 
only  over  the  lake  ?  that  as  soon  as  the  cliff 
abuts  on  tlic  downs  right  and  left,  it  forms 
pinnacles,  caves,  broken  angular  boulders  ? 
Syenite  usually  does  so  in  our  damp  climate, 
from  the  "  weathering  "  effect  of  frost  and  rain  : 
why  hii3  it  not  done  so  over  the  lake?  On  that 
part  something  (giants  perliaps)  lias  been 
scrambling  uj)  or  down  on  a  very  large  scale, 
and  so  ruljbed  off  every  corner  which  was  in- 
clined to  come  away,  till  the  solid  core  of  the  rock 


22  GLAUCUS  ;    OH, 

was  bared.  And  may  not  those  mysterious  giants 
have  had  a  hand  in  carrying  the  stones  across  the 
lake  ?  .  .  .  Eeally  I  am  not  altogether  jesting. 
Think  awhile  what  agent  could  possibly  have 
produced  either  one,  or  both,  of  those  effects  ? 

Thex-e  is  but  one  ;  and  that,  if  you  have  been 
an  Alpine  traveller,  much  more  if  you  have  been 
a  chamois  hunter,  you  have  seen  many  a  time 
(whether  you  knew  it  or  not)  at  the  very  same 
work. 

Ice  ?  Yes  ;  ice ;  Ilrymir  the  frost-giant,  and 
no  one  else.  And  if  you  will  look  at  the  facts, 
you  Avill  see  how  ice  may  have  done  it.  Our 
friend  John  Jones's  report  of  plains  and  bogs 
and  a  lake  above  makes  it  quite  possible  that  in 
the  "  Ice  age  "  (Glacial  Epoch,  as  the  big-word- 
mongers  call  it)  there  was  above  that  cliff  a  great 
neve,  or  snowfield,  such  as  you  have  seen  often 
in  the  Alps  at  the  head  of  each  glacier.  Over 
the  face  of  this  cliff  a  glacier  has  crawled  down 
from  that  nev6,  polishing  the  face  of  the  rock  in 
its  descent :  but  the  snow,  having  no  large  and 
deep  outlet,  has  not  slid  down  in  a  sufficient 
stream  to  reach  the  vale  below,  and  form  a  gla- 
cier of  the  first  order ;  and  has  therefore  stopped 
short  on  the  other  side  of  the  lake,  as  a  glacier  of 


THE    WONDEKS    OF   THE    SHORE.  23 

the  second  order,  which  ends  in  an  ice-clifF  hang- 
ing high  upon  the  mountain-side,  and  kept  from 
further  progress  by  daily  melting.  If  you  have 
ever  gone  up  the  Mer  de  Glace  to  the  Tacul,  you 
saw  a  magnificent  specimen  of  this  sort  on  your 
riglit  hand,  just  opposite  the  Tacul,  in  the  Gla- 
cier de  Trelaporte,  which  comes  down  from  the 
Aiguille  de  Charmoz. 

This  explains  our  pebble-ridge.  The  stones 
which  the  glacier  rubbed  off  the  cliff  beneath  it, 
it  carried  forward,  slowly  but  surely,  till  they  saw 
the  light  again  in  the  face  of  the  ice-cliff,  and 
dropped  out  of  it  under  the  melting  of  the  sum- 
mer sun,  to  form  a  huge  dam  across  the  ravine ; 
till  the  "Ice  age"  past,  a  more  genial  climafe 
succeeded,  and  neve  and  glacier  melted  away:  but 
the  "  moraine  "  of  stones  did  not,  and  remain  to 
this  day,  the  dam  which  keeps  up  the  waters  of 
the  lake. 

There  is  my  exj)lanati(jii.  If  you  can  find  a 
better,  do  ;  buf  remfmber  always  that  it  must 
include  an  answer  to  —  "  IIow  did  the  stones  get 
across  the  lake  ?  " 

Now,  reader,  we  have  had  no  aljstruse  science 
here,  no  long  words,  not  even  a  microscope  or  a 
book  :  and  yet  we,  as  two  plain  sportsmen,  have 


24  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

gone  back,  or  been  led  back  by  fact  and  common 
sense,  into  the  most  awful  and  sublime  depths, 
into  an  epos  of  the  destruction  and  re-creation  of 
a  former  world. 

This  is  but  a  single  instance ;  I  might  give 
hundreds.  This  one,  nevertheless,  may  have 
some  effect  in  awakening  you  to  the  boundless 
world  of  wonders  which  is  all  around  you,  and 
make  you  ask  yourself  seriously,  "  What  branch 
of  Natural  History  shall  I  begin  to  investigate,  if 
it  be  but  for  a  few  weeks,  this  summer  ?  " 

To  which  I  answer.  Try  "  the  Wonders  of  the 
Shore."  There  are  along  every  sea-beach  more 
strange  things  to  be  seen,  and  those  to  be  seen 
easily,  than  in  any  other  field  of  observation 
which  you  will  find  in  these  islands.  And  on 
the  shore  only  will  you  have  the  enjoyment  of 
finding  new  species,  of  adding  your  mite  to  the 
treasures  of  science. 

For  not  only  the  English  ferns,  but  the  natural 
history  of  all  our  land  species,  are  now  well-nigh 
exhausted.  Our  home  botanists,  entomologists, 
and  ornithologists  are  spending  their  time  now, 
perforce,  in  verifying  a  few  obscure  species,  and 
bemoaning  themselves  like  Alexander,  that  there 
are  no  more  worlds  left  to  conquer.      For  the 


THE   WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  25 

geologist,  incleed,  especially  in  the  remotest  dis- 
tricts, much  remains  to  be  done,  but  only  at  a 
heavy  outlay  of  time,  labor,  and  study ;  and  the 
dilettante  (and  it  is  for  dilettanti,  like  myself,  that 
I  principally  write)  must  be  content  to  tread  in 
the  tracks  of  greater  men  who  have  preceded 
him,  and  accept  at  second  and  third  hand  their 
foregone  conclusions. 

But  this  is  most  unsatisfactory ;  for  in  giving 
up  discovery,  one  gives  up  one  of  the  highest 
enjoyments  of  natural  history.  There  is  a  mys- 
terious delight  in  the  discovery  of  a  new  species, 
akin  (o  that  of  seeing  for  the  first  time  in  their 
native  haunts,  plants  or  animals  of  wliicli  one 
has  till  then  only  read.  Some,  surely,  who  read 
these  pages,  have  experienced  that  latter  de- 
light ;  and,  though  they  might  find  it  hard  to 
define  whence  the  pleasure  arose,  know  well  that 
it  was  a  solid  plcjisure,  the  memory  of  which  they 
would  not  give  up  for  hard  cash.  Some,  surely, 
can  recollect  at  tlicir  first  sight  of  the  Alpine 
Soldanclla,  the  Khododendron,  or  the  black 
Orchis,  growing  upon  the  edge  of  tlie  eternal 
snow,  a  tlirill  of  emotion,  not  unmixed  with 
awe;  u  sense  that  they  were, iis  it  were,  bronglit 
face  to  face  with  the  creatures  of  another  world  ; 


26  GLAUCUS  ;    OK, 

that  Nature  was  independent  of  them,  not  merely 
they  of  her ;  that  ti-ees  were  not  merely  made  to 
build  their  houses,  or  herbs  to  feed  their  cattle;  as 
they  looked  on  those  wild  gardens  amid  the  wreaths 
of  the  untrodden  snow,  which  had  lifted  their  gay 
flowers  to  the  sun  year  after  year  since  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world,  taking  no  heed  of  man,  and 
all  the  coil  which  he  keeps  in  the  valleys  far  below. 
And  even,  to  take  a  simpler  instance,  there  are 
those  who  will  excuse,  or  even  approve  of  a 
writer  for  saying  that,  among  the  memories  of  a 
month's  eventful  tour,  those  which  stand  out 
as  beacon-points,  those  round  which  all  the 
others  group  themselves,  are  the  first  wolf-track 
by  the  road-side  in  the  Kyllwald  ;  the  first  sight 
of  the  blue  and  green  Roller-birds,  walking 
behind  the  plough  like  rooks  in  the  tobacco- 
fields  of  Wittlich ;  the  first  ball  of  Olivine 
scraped  out  of  the  volcanic  slag-heaps  of  the 
Dreisser-Weiher ;  the  first  pair  of  the  Lesser 
Bustard  which  we  flushed  upon  the  downs  of 
the  Mosel-kopf ;  the  first  sight  of  the  cloud  of 
white  Ephemerae,  fluttering  in  the  dusk  like  a 
summer  snowstorm  between  us  and  the  black 
cliffs  of  the  Rheinstein,  while  the  broad  Rhine 
beneath   flashed  blood-red   in   the   blaze  of  the 


THE   "WOXDEKS    OF    THE    SHORE.  27 

lightning  and  the  fires  of  the  Mausenthurm, 
a  lurid  Acheron  above  which  seemed  to  hover 
ten  thousand  unburied  ghosts ;  and  last,  but  not 
least,  on  the  lip  of  the  vast  Mosel-kopf  cra- 
ter, just  above  the  point  where  the  weight  of 
the  fiery  lake  has  burst  the  side  of  the  great 
slag-cup,  and  rushed  forth  between  two  cliffs  of 
clink-stone  across  the  downs,  in  a  clanging 
stream  of  fire,  damming  up  rivulets,  and  blasting 
its  path  through  forests,  far  away  toward  the 
valley  of  the  IMoselle,  the  sight  of  an  object 
for  which  was  forgotten  for  the  moment  that 
battle-field  of  the  Titans  at  our  feet,  and  all 
the  glorious  panorama,  Ilundsruck  and  Taunus, 
Siebengebirge  and  Ardennes,  and  all  the  crater 
peaks  around  ;  and  wliich  was  —  smile  not,  reader 
—  our  first  yellow  foxglove. 

IJut  what  is  even  this  to  the  delight  of  finding 
a  new  species?  —  of  rescuing  (as  it  seems  to  you) 
one  more  thought  of  the  divine  mind  from  Ilcla, 
and  the  realms  of  the  unknown,  unclassified, 
uncomprehcndod  ?  As  it  seems  to  you  :  though 
in  reality  it  only  seems  so,  in  a  world  wherein 
not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  unnoticed  by 
our  Father  who  is  in  heaven. 

The    irutli    is,    the    pleasure    of  finding    new 


28  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

species  is  too  gi*eat ;  it  is  morally  dangerous  ;  for 
it  brings  witli  it  the  temptation  to  look  on  the 
thing  found  as  your  own  possession,  all  but  your 
own  creation ;  to  pride  yourself  on  it,  as  if  God 
had  not  known  it  for  ages  since  ;  even  to 
squabble  jealously  for  the  right  of  having  it 
named  after  you,  and  of  being  recorded  in  the 
Transactions  of  I-know-not-what  Society  as  its 
first  discoverer  :  —  as  if  all  the  angels  in  heaven 
had  not  been  admiring  it  long  before  you  were 
born  or  thought  of 

But  to  be  forewarned  is  to  be  forearmed ;  and 
I  seriously  counsel  you  to  try  if  you  cannot  find 
something  new  this  summer  along  the  coast  to 
which  you  are  going.  There  is  no  reason  why 
you  should  not  be  as  successful  as  a  friend  of 
mine,  who,  with  a  veiy  slight  smattering  of  sci- 
ence, and  very  desultory  research,  obtained  last 
winter  from  the  Torbay  shores  three  entirely  new 
species,  beside  several  rare  animals  which  had 
escaped  all  naturalists  since  the  lynx-eye  of 
Colonel  Montagu  discerned  them  forty  years  ago. 

And  do  not  despise  the  creatures  because  they 
are  minute.  No  doubt  we  should  both  of  us 
prefer  helping  Rajah  Brooke  to  discover  mon- 
strous apes  in  the  tropical  forests  of  Borneo,  or 


THE    WOXDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  29 

Stumbling  with  Hooker  upon  herds  of  gigantic 
"Amnion  sheep  "  amid  the  rhododendron  thickets 
of  the  Himalaya :  but  it  cannot  be ;  and  "  he  is 
a  fool,"  says  old  Hesiod,  "  who  knows  not  how 
much  better  half  is  than  the  whole."  Let  us  be 
content  with  what  is  within  our  reach.  And 
doubt  not  that  in  these  tiny  creatures  arc  myste- 
ries more  than  we  shall  ever  fathom. 

The  zoophytes  and  microscopic  animalcules 
which  people  every  shore  and  every  drop  of 
water,  have  been  now  raised  to  a  rank  in  the 
human  mind,  more  important,  perhaps,  than 
even  those  gigantic  monsters,  whose  models  fill 
the  lake  at  the  New  Crystal  Palace.  Tlie  re- 
scarcli  which  has  been  bestowed,  for  the  last 
century,  upon  these  once  unnoticed  atomies, 
has  well  repaid  itself;  for  from  no  branch  of 
physical  science  has  more  been  learnt  of  the 
scientiu  scicnliarum,  the  priceless  art  of  learn- 
ing ;  no  branch  of  science  has  more  utterly 
confounded  the  wisdom  of  the  wise,  shattered 
to  pieces  systems  and  theories,  and  the  idolatry 
of  arbitrary  names,  and  tauglit  man  to  be 
silent  while  his  IMaker  speaks,  than  this  ap- 
parent pedantry  of  /oopliytology,  in  which  our 
old   distinctions   of  "animal,"  "vegetable,"   and 


30  GLAUCUS  ;   OK, 

"  mineral "  are  trembling  in  the  balance,  seem- 
ingly ready  to  vanish  like  their  fellows,  "  the 
four  elements "  of  fire,  air,  earth,  and  water. 
No  branch  of  science  has  helped  so  much  to 
sweep  away  that  sensuous  idolatry  of  mere  size, 
which  tempts  man  to  admire  and  respect  ob- 
jects in  proportion  to  the  number  of  feet  or 
inches  which  they  occupy  in  space.  No  branch, 
moreover,  has  been  more  humbling  to  the 
boasted  rapidity  and  omnipotence  of  the  human 
reason,  and  taught  those  who  have  eyes  to  see, 
and  hearts  to  understand,  how  weak  and  way- 
ward, staggei'ing  and  slow,  are  the  steps  of  our 
fallen  race  (rapid  and  triumphant  enough  in 
that  broad  road  of  theories  which  leads  to 
intellectual  destruction)  whensoever  they  tread 
the  narrow  path  of  true  science,  which  leads 
(if  I  may  be  allowed  to  transfer  our  Lord's 
great  parable  from  moral  to  intellectual  matters) 
to  Life ;  to  the  living  and  permanent  knowl- 
edge of  living  things,  and  of  the  laws  of  their 
existence.  Humbling,  truly,  to  one  Avho,  in 
this  summer  of  1854,  the  centenary  year  of 
British  zoophytology,  looks  back  to  the  summer  of 
1754,  when  good  Mr.  Ellis,  the  wise  and  benev- 
olent  West   Indian   merchant,  read   before   the 


THE   ■\VOXDEES    OF   THE    SHORE.  31 

Royal  Society  his  famous  paper  proving  the 
animal  nature  of  corals,  and  followed  it  up  the 
year  after  by  that  "  Essay  toward  a  Natural 
History  of  the  Corallines,  and  other  like  Marine 
Productions  of  the  British  Coasts,"  which  forms 
the  groundwork  of  all  our  knowledge  on  the 
subject  to  this  day.  The  chapter  in  Dr.  G. 
Johnston's  British  Zoophytes,  p.  407,  or  the 
excellent  little  resume  thereof  in  Dr.  Lands- 
borough's  book  on  the  same  subject,  is  really  a 
saddening  one,  as  one  sees  how  loath  were  not 
merely  dreamers  like  Marsigli  or  Bonnet,  but 
sound-headed  men  like  Pallas  and  Linnc,  to  give 
up  the  old  sense-bound  fancy,  that  these  corals 
were  vegetables,  and  tlieir  i)olypes  some  sort  of 
living  flowers.  Yet  after  all  there  are  excuses 
for  them.  "Witliout  our  improved  microscopes, 
and  while  the  sciences  of  comparative  anatomy 
and  clicmislry  were  yet  infantile,  it  was  difllcult 
to  believe  what  was  the  truth  ;  and  for  tliis 
.simple  reason  ;  that,  as  usual,  the  truth,  Avlicn 
discovered,  turned  out  far  more  starthiig  and 
prodigious  than  tlic  dreams  wliich  men  had 
Iiastily  substituted  for  it  ;  more  strange  tlian 
Ovid's  old  story  that  the  coral  was  soft  under 
the  sea,  and  hardened  by  exposure  to  air ;  tlian 


32  GLAucus ;  ou, 

Marsigli's  notion,  that  the  coral-polypes  were  its 
flowers ;  than  Dr.  Parsons'  contemptuous  denial, 
that  these  complicated  forms  could  be  "  the 
operations  of  little,  poor,  helpless,  jelly-like  ani- 
mals, and  not  the  work  of  more  sure  vegetation  " ; 
than  Baker  the  microscopist's  detailed  theory 
of  their  being  produced  by  the  crystallization  of 
the  mineral  salts  in  the  sea-water,  just  as  he  had 
seen  "  the  particles  of  mercury  and  copper  in 
aquafortis  assume  tree-like  forms,  or  curious 
delineations  of  mosses  and  minute  shrubs  on 
slates  and  stones,  owing  to  the  shooting  of  salts 
intermixed  with  mineral  particles":  —  one  smiles 
at  it  now :  yet  these  men  were  no  less  sensible 
than  we  of  the  year  1854  ;  and  if  we  know  better, 
it  is  only  because  other  men,  and  those  few  and 
far  between,  have  labored  amid  disbelief,  ridicule, 
and  error ;  needing  again  and  again  to  retrace 
their  steps,  and  to  unlearn  more  than  they  learnt, 
seeming  to  go  backwards  when  they  were  really 
progressing  most ;  and  now  we  have  entei-ed  into 
their  labors,  and  find  them,  as  I  have  just  said, 
more  wondrous  than  all  the  poetic  dreams  of  a 
Bonnet  or  a  Darwin.  For  who,  after  all,  to  take  a 
few  broad  instances,  (not  to  enlarge  on  the  great 
root-wonder  of  a  number   of  distinct  individuals 


THE    WONDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  33 

connected  by  a  common  life,  and  forming  a  seem- 
ing plant  invariable  in  each  species,)  would  have 
dreamed  of  the  "  bizarreries  "  which  these  very 
zociphytes  present  in  their  classification  ?  You 
go  down  to  any  shore  after  a  gale  of  wind,  and 
pick  up  a  few  delicate  little  sea-ferns.  You  have 
two  in  your  hand,  which  probably  look  to  you, 
even  under  a  good  pockct-magnifior,  identical 
or  nearly  so.*  But  you  are  told,  to  your  surprise, 
that  however  ahkc  the  dead  horny  polypidoms 
which  you  hold  may  be,  the  two  species  of  animal 
which  have  formed  them  are  at  least  as  far  apart 
in  the  scale  of  creation  as  a  quadruped  is  from  a 
fish.  You  see  in  some  Musselburgh  dredger's 
boat  the  phosphorescent  sea-pen,  (unknown  in 
England,)  a  living  feather,  of  the  look  and  con- 
sistency of  a  cock's  comb ;  or  the  still  stranger 
sea-rush,  (  Virfjalaria  mirabilis,)  a  spine  two  feet 
long,  witli  hundreds  of  rosy  flowerets  arranged  in 
half-rings  round  it  from  end  to  end ;  and  you 
arc  told  that  these  are  the  congeners  of  llie  great 
stony  Vcnus's  fan  which  bangs  in  seamen's  cot- 
tages, brought  liomc  from  tlie  "West  Indies.     And 

*  Herhdiirtd  cy/i  n  ulnOt  iiini  ijiiiicliari.i   Imintliita  ;  or  nnv 
of  the  fimall  Scrtulnriw,  cornpnicl  witli  Crimir  uml  CiHularicc 
arc  very  good  cxomplcs. 
3 


34  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

ere  you  have  done  wondering,  you  hear  that  all 
three  are  congeners  of  the  ugly,  shapeless  white 
"  dead  man's  hand,"  which  you  may  pick  up 
after  a  storm  on  any  shore.  You  have  a  beau- 
tiful madrepore  or  brainstone  on  your  mantel- 
piece, brought  home  from  some  Pacific  coral-reef. 
You  are  to  believe  that  it  has  no  more  to  do 
with  the  beautiful  tubular  corals  among  which  it 
was  growing,  than  a  bird  has  with  a  worm,  and 
that  its  first-cousins  are  the  soft  slimy  sea- 
anemones  which  you  see  expanding  their  living 
flowers  in  every  rock-pool,  bags  of  sea-water, 
without  a  trace  of  bone  or  stone.  You  must 
believe  it;  for  in  science,  as  in  higher  matters, 
he  who  will  walk  surely  must  "walk  by  faith 
and  not  by  sight." 

These  are  but  a  few  of  the  wonders  which  the 
classification  of  marine  animals  affords  ;  and  only 
drawn  from  one  class  of  them,  though  almost 
as  common  among  every  other  family  of  that 
submarine  world  whereof  Spenser  sang  :  — 

"  0  what  an  endless  work  have  I  in  hand, 
To  count  the  sea's  abundant  progeny ! 
Whose  fruitful  seed  far  passeth  those  in  land, 
And  also  tliosc  which  won  in  th'  azure  sky. 
For  much  more  eath  to  tell  the  stars  on  high, 


THE    AVONDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  35 

jVlbe  they  endless  seem  in  estimation, 
Than  to  recount  the  sea's  posterity; 
So  fertile  be  the  flouds  in  generation, 
So  huge  their  numbers,  and  so  numberless  their  nation." 

But  these  few  examples  will  be  sufficient  to 
account  both  for  the  slow  pace  at  which  the 
knowledge  of  sea-animals  has  progressed,  and 
for  the  allurement  which  men  of  the  highest  at- 
tainments have  found,  and  still  find,  in  it.  And 
when  to  this  we  add  the  marvels  which  meet 
us  at  every  step  in  the  anatomy  and  the  repro- 
duction of  these  creatures,  and  in  the  chemical 
and  mechanical  functions  which  they  fulfil  in 
the  great  economy  of  our  planet,  we  cannot 
wonder  at  finding  that  books  which  treat  of 
them  carry  with  them  a  certain  charm  of  ro- 
mance, and  feed  the  play  of  fancy,  and  tliat 
love  ol"  the  marvellous  whicli  is  inherent  in  man, 
at  the  same  time  that  they  lead  the  reader  to 
more  solemn  and  lofty  (rains  of  tliought,  which 
cnu  find  their  full  satisfaction  only  in  self-forgetful 
worship,  and  tliat  hymn  of  [)raise  which  goes  up 
ever  from  land  and  sea,  as  well  as  from  saints  and 
martyrs  and  the  lieavcnly  host,  "  O,  all  ye  works 
of  the  Lord,  and  ye,  too,  spirits  and  souls  of  the 
righteous,  prai<f  Flim,  ami  magnify  Ilim  for 
ever ! " 


36  GLAucus ;  on, 

I  have  said,  that  there  were  excuses  for  the 
old  contempt  of  the  study  of  Natural  Ilistoiy. 
I  have  said  too,  it  may  be  hoped,  enough  to 
show  that  contempt  to  be  now  ill-founded.  But 
still,  there  are  those  who  regard  it  as  a  mere 
amusement,  and  that  as  a  somewhat  effeminate 
one ;  and  think  that  it  can  at  best  help  to  while 
away  a  leisure  hour  harmlessly,  and  perhaps 
usefully,  as  a  substitute  for  coarser  sports,  or 
for  the  reading  of  novels.  Those,  however,  who 
have  followed  it  out,  especially  on  the  sea-shore, 
know  better.  They  can  tell  from  experience, 
that  over  and  above  its  accessory  charms  of 
pure  sea-breezes,  and  wild  rambles  by  cliff  and 
loch,  the  study  itself  has  had  a  weighty  moral 
effect  upon  their  hearts  and  spirits.  There  are 
those  who  can  well  understand  how  the  good 
and  wise  John  Ellis,  amid  all  his  philanthropic 
labors  for  the  good  of  the  "West  Indies,  while 
he  was  spending  his  intellect  and  fortune  in 
introducing  into  our  tropic  settlements  the  bread- 
fruit, the  mangosteen,  and  every  plant  and  seed 
which  he  hoped  might  be  useful  for  medicine, 
agriculture,  and  commerce,  could  yet  feel  him- 
self justified  in  devoting  large  portions  of  his 
ever   well-spent   time    to   the    fighting  the   bat- 


TUE    WONDERS    OF    THE    SUOUE.  37 

tie  of  the  corallines  against  Parsons  and  the 
rest,  and  even  in  measuring  pens  with  Linne, 
the  prince  of  naturalists.  There  are  those  who 
can  sympathize  with  the  gallant  old  Scotch 
officer  mentioned  by  some  writer  on  sea-weeds, 
who,  desperately  wounded  in  the  bi-each  at 
liadajos,  and  a  sharer  in  all  the  toils  and  tri- 
umphs of  the  Peninsular  war,  could  in  his  old  age 
show  a  rare  sea-weed  with  as  much  triumph  as  his 
well-earned  medals,  and  talk  over  a  tiny  spore- 
capsule  with  as  much  zest  as  the  records  of  sieges 
and  battles.  Why  not?  That  temper  which 
made  him  a  good  soldier  may  very  well  have 
made  him  a  good  naturalist  also.  And  certainly, 
the  best  naturalist,  as  far  as  logical  acumen,  as 
well  as  earnest  research,  is  concerned,  whom 
England  has  ever  seen,  was  the  Devonshire 
sfjuire,  Colonel  George  Montagu,  of  whom  Mr. 
K.  Forbes*  well  says,  that  "had  he  been  educated 
a  physiologist,"  (and  not,  lus  he  was,  a  soldier  and 
a  sportsman,)  "  an<l  made  the  study  of  nature  his 

*  "  British  Stnr-fislicfj."  This  delightful  writer,  and  eager 
investigator,  ha»  just  died,  in  the  prime  of  life,  from  dis- 
oa.so  contracted  (it  is  said)  during  a  i-cifntlfic  journey  in 
Asia  Minor  :  one  uvrc  martyr  to  tlic  ktiif;lit-errnntry  of 
science. 


38  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

aim  and  not  his  amusement,  his  would  have  been 
one  of  the  greatest  names  in  the  whole  ranjrc  of 
British  science."  I  question,  nevertheless,  wheth- 
er he  would  not  have  lost  more  than  he  would 
have  gained  by  a  different  training.  It  might 
have  made  him  a  more  learned  systematizer ; 
but  would  it  have  quickened  in  him  that  "see- 
ing eye "  of  the  true  soldier  and  sportsman, 
which  makes  Montagu's  descriptions  indelible 
word-pictures,  instinct  with  life  and  truth  ? 
"  There  is  no  question,"  says  Mr.  E.  Forbes, 
after  bewailing  the  vagueness  of  most  naturalists, 
"  about  the  identity  of  any  animal  Montagu 
described He  was  a  forward-looking  phi- 
losopher ;  he  spoke  of  every  creature  as  if  one 
exceeding  like  it,  yet  different  from  it,  would 
be  washed  up  by  the  waves  next  tide.  Con- 
sequently his  descriptions  are  permanent."  Sci- 
entific men  will  recognize  in  this  the  highest 
praise  which  can  be  bestowed,  because  it  attrib- 
utes to  him  that  highest  faculty,  —  The  Art  of 
Seeing:  but  the  study  and  the  book  would  not 
have  given  that.  It  is  God's  gift,  wheresoever 
educated :  but  its  true  school-room  is  the  camp 
and  the  ocean,  the  prairie  and  the  forest ;  active 
self-helping  life,  whicli  can  grapple  with  Nature 


THE    "WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  39 

herself:  not  merely  with  printed  books  ahout  her. 
Let  no  one  think  that  this  same  natural  history 
is  a  pursuit  fitted  only  for  effeminate  or  pedantic 
men.  We  should  say  rather,  that  the  qualifi- 
cations required  for  a  perfect  naturalist  are  as 
many  and  as  lofty  as  were  required,  by  old. 
chivalrous  writers,  for  the  perfect  knight-errant 
of  the  Middle  Ages  ;  for  (to  sketch  an  ideal,  of 
which  we  are  happy  to  say  our  race  now  afford? 
many  a  fair  realization)  our  perfect  naturalist 
should  be  strong  in  body  ;  able  to  haul  a  dredge, 
climli  a  rock,  turn  a  boulder,  walk  all  day,  un- 
certain where  he  shall  cat  or  rest ;  ready  to  face 
sun  and  rain,  wind  and  frost,  and  to  eat  or  drink 
thankfully  anything,  however  coarse  or  meagre  ; 
he  should  know  liow  to  swim  for  his  life,  to  pull 
an  oar,  sail  a  boat,  and  ride  the  first  horse  which 
comes  to  hand ;  and,  finally,  he  should  be  a 
thoroughly  good  sliot,  and  a  skifful  fisherman  ; 
and,  if  he  go  far  abroad,  be  able  on  occasion  to 
fight  for  liis  fife. 

For  liis  moral  character,  lie  must,  like  a 
knight  of  old,  be  first  of  all  gentle  and  courteous, 
ready  and  abb;  tn  ingratiate  himself  with  the 
poor,  the  ignorant,  and  the  savage  ;  not  only  be- 
cause forci;jn  travel  will  be  often  otliervviso  im- 


40  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

possible,  but  because  he  knows  how  much  inval- 
uable local  information  can  be  only  obtained  from 
fishermen,  miners,  hunters,  and  tillers  of  the  soil. 
Next,  he  should  be  brave  and  enterprising,  and 
withal  patient  and  undaunted  ;  not  merely  in 
travel,  but  in  investigation ;  knowing  (as  Lord 
Bacon  might  have  put  it)  that  the  kingdom  of 
nature,  like  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  must  be 
taken  by  violence,  and  that  only  to  those  who 
knock  long  and  earnestly  does  the  great  mother 
open  the  doors  of  her  sanctuary.  He  must  be 
of  a  reverent  turn  of  mind  also ;  not  rashly  dis- 
crediting any  reports,  however  vague  and  frag- 
mentary ;  giving  man  credit  always  for  some 
germ  of  truth,  and  giving  ndture  credit  for  an 
inexhaustible  fertility  and  variety,  which  will 
keep  him  his  life  long  always  reverent,  yet  never 
superstitious  ;  Avondering  at  the  commonest,  but 
not  surprised  by  the  most  strange  ;  free  from  the 
idols  of  size  and  sensuous  loveliness  ;  able  to  see 
grandeur  in  the  minutest  objects,  beauty  in  the 
most  ungainly  ;  estimating  each  thing  not  carnal- 
ly, as  the  vulgar  do,  by  its  size  or  its  pleasantness 
to  the  senses,  but  spiritually,  by  the  amount  of 
Divine  thought  revealed  to  him  therein  ;  hold- 
ing every  phenomenon  worth  the  noting  down ; 


THE    WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  41 

believing  that  every  pebble  holds  a  treasure, 
every  bud  a  revelation  ;  making  it  a  point  of 
conscience  to  pass  over  nothing  through  laziness 
or  hastiness,  lest  the  vision  once  offered  and 
despised  should  be  withdrawn;  and  looking  at 
every  object  as  if  he  were  never  to  behold  it 
again. 

Moreover,  he  must  keep  himself  free  from  all 
those  perturbations  of  mind  which  not  only 
weaken  energy,  but  darken  and  confuse  the  in- 
ductive faculty ;  from  haste  and  laziness,  from 
melancholy,  testiness,  pride,  and  all  the  pas- 
sions which  make  men  sec  only  what  they 
wish  to  see.  Of  solemn  and  scrupulous  rever- 
ence for  truth,  of  the  habit  of  mind  which  re- 
gards each  fact  and  discovery  not  as  our  own 
possession,  but  as  the  possession  of  its  Creator, 
independent  of  us,  our  tastes,  our  needs,  or  our 
vainglory,  we  liardly  need  to  speak  ;  for  it  is 
the  very  essence  of  a  naturalist's  faculty,  the 
very  tenure  of  Iiis  existence:  and  without  truth- 
fulness, science  would  be  as  impossible  now  as 
rhivalry  would  have  been  of  old. 

And  last,  but  not  least,  the  perfect  naturalist 
should  have  in  liiiii  tiie  very  essence  of  true 
chivalry,    namely,    self-devotion  ;    tb(!    desire    to 


42  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

advance,  not  himself  and  his  own  fame  or 
weaUh,  but  knowledge  and  mankind.  He 
should  have  this  great  virtue ;  and  in  spite  of 
many  short-comings,  (for  what  man  is  there  who 
liveth  and  sinneth  not  ?)  naturalists  as  a  class 
have  it,  to  a  degree  which  makes  them  stand  out 
most  honorably  in  the  midst  of  a  self-seeking 
and  mammonite  generation,  inclined  to  value 
everything  by  its  money  price,  its  private  utility. 
The  spirit  which  gives  freely,  because  it  knows 
that  it  has  received  freely  ;  which  communicates 
knowledge  without  hope  of  reward,  without  jeal- 
ousy and  mean  rivalry,  to  fellow-students  and 
to  the  world ;  which  is  content  to  delve  and  toil 
comparatively  unknoAvn,  that  from  its  obscure 
and  seemingly  worthless  results  others  may  de- 
rive pleasure,  and  even  build  up  great  fortunes, 
and  change  the  very  face  of  cities  and  lands,  by 
the  practical  use  of  some  stray  talisman  which 
the  poor  student  has  invented  in  his  laboratory ; 
—  this  is  the  spirit  which  is  abroad  among  our 
scientific  men,  to  a  greater  degree  than  it  ever 
has  been  among  any  body  of  men,  for  many 
a  century  past ;  and  might  well  be  copied 
by  those  who  profess  deeper  purposes,  and  a 
more   exalted   calling,  than   the   discovery  of  a 


THE    WONDERS    OF    THE    SHOUE.  43 

new  zoophyte,  or  the  classification  of  a  moorland 
crag. 

And  it  is  these  qualities,  however  imperfectly 
ihey  may  be  realized  in  any  individual  instance, 
which  make  our  scientific  men,  as  a  class,  the 
wholcsoraest  and  pleasantest  of  companions 
abroad,  and  at  home  the  most  blameless,  simple, 
and  cheerful,  in  all  domestic  relations  ;  men  for 
the  most  part  of  manful  heads,  and  yet  of  child- 
like hearts,  who  have  turned  to  quiet  study,  in 
these  late  piping  times  of  peace,  an  intellectual 
health  and  courage  which  might  have  made  them, 
in  more  fierce  and  troublous  times,  capable  of 
doing  good  service  with  very  different  instru- 
ments than  the  scalpel  and  the  microscope. 

I  liavc  been  sketching  an  ideal  :  but  one 
whicli  I  seriously  recommend  to  the  consid- 
eration of  all  parents ;  for,  thougli  it  be  im- 
possil)lc  and  absurd  to  wisli  that  every  young 
man  should  grow  up  a  naturalist  by  profession, 
yet  this  age  offers  no  more  wholesome  training, 
both  moral  atid  intellectual,  llian  that  wliich  is 
given  by  in-tilling  into  the  young  an  early  taste 
for  out-door  physical  science.  The  education  of 
our  cliildrcn  is.  now  more  than  ever  a  puzzling 
problem,  if  by  education  we  mean  the  develop- 


44  GLAUCUS  ;    OK, 

inent  of  the  whole  liumanity,  uot  merely  of  some 
arbitrarily  chosen  part  of  it.  How  to  feed  the 
imagination  with  wholesome  food,  and  teach  it  to 
despise  French  novels,  and  that  sugared  slough. 
of  sentimental  poetry,  in  comparison  with  which 
the  old  fairy-tales  and  ballads  were  manful  and 
rational  ;  how  to  counteract  the  tendency  to 
shallow  and  conceited  sciolism,  engendered  by 
hearing  j^opular  lectures  on  all  manner  of  sub- 
jects, which  can  only  be  really  learnt  by  stern 
methodic  study ;  how  to  give  habits  of  enterprise, 
patience,  accurate  observation,  which  the  counting- 
house  or  the  library  will  never  bestow ;  above  all, 
how  to  develop  the  physical  powers,  without  en- 
gendering brutality  and  coarseness,  —  are  ques- 
tions becoming  daily  more  and  more  puzzling, 
while  they  need  daily  more  and  more  to  be  solved, 
in  an  age  of  enterprise,  travel,  and  emigration, 
like  the  present.  For  the  truth  must  be  told,  that 
the  great  majority  of  men  who  are  now  distin- 
guished by  commercial  success  have  had  a  train- 
ing the  directly  opposite  to  that  which  they  are 
giving  to  their  sons.  They  are  for  the  most  part 
men  who  have  migrated  from  the  country  to  the 
town,  and  had  in  their  youth  all  the  advantages  of 
a  sturdy  and  manful  hill-side  or  sea-side  training ; 


THE    AVONDliRS    OB'    THE    SHORE.  45 

men  whose  bodies  were  developed,  and  their  lungs 
fed  on  pure  breezes,  long  before  they  brought  to 
work  in  the  city  the  bodily  and  mental  strength 
which  they  had  gained  by  loch  and  moor.  But  it 
is  not  so  with  their  sons.  Their  business  habits 
are  learnt  in  the  counting-house ;  a  good  school, 
doubtless,  as  far  as  it  goes  :  but  one  Avhich  will 
expand  none  but  the  lowest  intellectual  faculties  ; 
which  will  make  them  accurate  accountants, 
shrewd  computers  and  competitors,  but  never  the 
originators  of  daring  schemes,  men  able  and  will- 
ing to  go  forth  to  replenish  the  earth  and  subdue 
it.  And  in  the  hours  of  relaxation,  how  much  of 
their  time  is  thrown  away,  for  want  of  anything 
better,  on  frivolity,  not  to  say  on  secret  profliga- 
cy, parents  know  too  well ;  and  often  shut  their 
eyes  in  very  despair  to  evils  wliich  tliey  know  not 
how  to  cure.  A  frightful  majority  of  our  middle- 
cla.«s  young  men  arc  growing  up  eilcniinate. 
empty  of  all  knowledge  but  what  tends  directly 
lo  the  making  of  a  fortune;  or  ratlier,  (o  sj)c;ik 
correctly,  to  the  keeping  up  the  fortunes  which 
their  fathers  have  made  for  them  ;  wliiK;  of  tlic 
minority,  wlio  arc  indeed  thinkers  and  readers, 
how  many  women  as  well  as  men  liave  we  seen 
wearying  their  kouIs  witli  study  undirected,  often 


46  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

misdirected ;  craving  to  learn,  yet  not  knowing 
how  or  what  to  learn  ;  cultivating,  with  unwhole- 
some energy,  the  head  at  the  expense  of  the  body 
and  the  heart ;  catching  up  with  the  most  ca- 
pricious self-will  one  mania  after  another,  and 
tossing  it  away  again  for  some  new  phantom  ; 
gorging  the  memory  with  facts  which  no  one  has 
taught  them  to  arrange,  and  the  reason  with  prob- 
lems which  they  have  no  method  for  solving ; 
till  they  fret  themselves  into  a  chronic  fever  of 
the  brain,  which  too  often  urges  them  on  to 
plunge,  as  it  were  to  cool  the  inward  fire,  into 
the  ever-restless  sea  of  doubt  and  disbelief.  It  is 
a  sad  picture.  There  are  many  who  may  read 
these  pages  whose  hearts  will  tell  them  that  it  is 
a  true  one.  "What  is  wanted  in  these  cases  is  a 
methodic  and  scientific  habit  of  mind  ;  and  a  class 
of  objects  on  which  to  exercise  that  habit,  which 
will  fever  neither  the  speculative  intellect  nor 
the  moral  sense ;  and  those  physical  science  will 
give,  as  nothing  else  can  give  it. 

Moreover,  to  revert  to  another  point  which 
we  touched  just  now,  man  has  a  body  as  well  as 
a  mind ;  and  with  the  vast  majority  there  will  be 
no  mens  sana  unless  there  be  a  corpus  sanutn  for 
it  to  inhabit.     And  what  out-door  training  to  give 


THE   WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  47 

our  youths  is,  as  we  have  already  said,  more 
than  ever  puzzling.  The  difficulty  is  felt,  pei*- 
haps,  less  in  Scotland  than  in  England.  The 
Scotch  climate  compels  hardiness ;  the  Scotch 
bodily  strength  makes  it  easy  ;  and  Scotland, 
with  her  mountain-tours  in  summer,  and  her 
frozen  lochs  in  winter,  her  labyrinth  of  sea-shore, 
and,  above  all,  that  priceless  boon  which  Provi- 
dence has  bestowed  on  her,  in  the  contiguity  of 
her  great  cities  to  the  loveliest  scenery,  and  hills 
where  every  breeze  is  health,  affords  facilities  for 
healthy  physical  life  unknown  to  the  Englishman, 
who  has  no  Arthur's  Seat  towering  above  his 
London,  no  Western  Islands  spotting  the  ocean 
firths  beside  his  IManchcster.  Field  sports,  with 
the  invaluable  training  which  they  give,  if  not 

"  The  reason  firm," 
yet  still 

"  The  temperate  will, 
Kn<lnr:iiii  I',  lorciilght,  Btrcngth,  and  skill," 

have  become  impossible  for  the  greater  number  ; 

and   athletic  exercises  are  now,   in   P^ngland   at 

least,  so  artificialized,  so  expensive,  so  mixed  up 

wit}»  drinking,  ^.'ambling,  and  other  evils  of  which 

wc  need  say  nothing  here,  that  one  cannot  wonder 

at   any   parents'   shrinking   fn»nj    allowing   their 

sons  to  meddle  much  with  them.     And  yet  the 


48  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

young  man  who  has  had  no  substitute  for  such 
amusements  -will  cut  but  a  sorry  figure  in  Aus- 
traha,  Canada,  or  India ;  and,  if  he  stays  at  home, 
will  spend  many  a  pound  in  doctors'  bills,  Avhich 
could  have  been  better  employed  elsewhere. 
"  Taking  a  walk "  —  as  one  would  take  a  pill 
or  a  draught  —  seems  likely  soon  to  become  the 
only  form  of  out-door  existence  possible  for  us 
of  the  British  Isles.  But  a  walk  without  an 
object,  unless  in  the  most  lovely  and  novel  of 
scenery,  is  a  poor  exercise,  and  as  a  recreation 
utterly  nil.  We  never  knew  two  young  lads  go 
out  for  a  "constitutional,"  who  did  not,  if  they 
Avere  commonplace  youths,  gossip  the  whole  way 
about  things  better  left  unspoken ;  or,  if  they  were 
clever  ones,  fall  on  arguing  and  brainsbeating  on 
politics  or  metaphysics  from  the  moment  they  left 
the  door,  and  return  with  their  wits  even  more 
heated  and  tired  than  they  were  when  they  set 
out.  We  cannot  help  fancying  that  Milton  made 
a  mistake  in  a  certain  celebrated  passage  ;  and 
that  it  was  not  "  sitting  on  a  hill  apart,"  but 
tramping  four  miles  out  and  four  miles  in  along  a 
turnpike-road,  that  his  hapless  spirits  discoursed 

"  Of  fate,  free-will,  foreknowledge  absolute, 
And  found  no  end,  in  wandering  mazes  lost." 


THE    WONDERS    OF    THE    SIIOHE.  49 

Seriously,  if  we  wisli  rural  walks  to  do  our 
children  any  good,  we  must  give  them  a  love  for 
rural  sights,  an  object  in  every  walk ;  we  must 
teach  them  —  and  we  can  teach  them  —  to  find 
wonder  in  every  insect,  sublimity  in  every  hedge- 
row, the  records  of  past  worlds  in  every  pebble, 
and  boundless  fertility  upon  the  barren  shore ; 
and  so,  by  teaching  them  to  make  full  use  of  that 
limited  sphere  in  which  they  now  are,  make  them 
faithful  in  a  few  things,  that  they  may  be  fit  here- 
after to  be  rulers  over  much. 

I  may  seem  to  exaggerate  the  advantages  of 
such  studies  ;  but  the  question  after  all  is  one  of 
experience ;  and  I  have  had  experience  enough 
and  to  sj)arc,  that  what  I  say  is  true.  I  have 
seen  the  young  man  of  fierce  passions,  and  un- 
controlhible  daring,  expend  healtliily  that  energy 
which  threatened  daily  to  plunge  him  into  reck- 
lessness, if  not  into  sin,  upon  hunting  out  and 
collecling,  through  rock  and  bog,  snow  and  tem- 
pest, every  bird  and  egg  of  the  neigliboring 
forest.  I  liave  seen  tlie  cultivated  man,  craving 
for  travel  arnl  for  success  in  life,  pent  up  in  the 
drudgery  of  Lotulm  work,  and  yet  keeping  his 
spirit  calm,  and  perhaps  his  morals  all  the  more 
righteous,  by  spending  over  his  microscope  cven- 
4 


50  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

ings  which  would  too  probably  have  gradually 
been  wasted  at  the  theatre.  I  have  seen  the 
young  London  beauty,  amid  all  the  excitement 
and  temptation  of  luxury  and  flattery,  with  her 
lieart  pure  and  her  mind  occupied  in  a  boudoir 
full  of  shells  and  fossils,  flowers  and  sea-weeds, 
and  keeping  herself  unspotted  from  the  world, 
by  considering  the  lilies  of  the  field,  how  they 
grow.  And  therefore  it  is  that  I  hail  with  thank- 
fulness every  fresh  book  of  Natural  History,  as  a 
fresh  boon  to  the  young,  a  fresh  help  to  those 
who  have  to  educate  them. 

The  gi'eatest  difficulty  in  the  way  of  beginners 
is  (as  in  most  things)  how  to  "learn  the  art  of 
learning."  They  go  out,  search,  find  less  than 
they  expected,  and  give  the  subject  up  in  dis- 
appointment. It  is  good  to  begin,  therefore,  if 
possible,  by  playing  the  part  of  "jackal"  to  some 
practised  naturalist,  who  will  show  the  tyro  where 
to  look,  what  to  look  for,  and,  moreover,  what  it 
is  that  he  has  found ;  often  no  easy  matter  to  dis- 
cover. Five-and-twenty  years  ago,  during  an 
autumn's  work  of  dead-leaf-searching  in  the  Dev- 
on woods  for  poor  old  Dr.  Turton,  while  be  was 
writing  his  book  on  British  land-shells,  the  pres- 
ent writer  learnt  more  of  the  art  of  observing 


THE    WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  51 

than  he  would  have  learnt  in  tliree  years'  desul- 
tory hunting  on  his  ovra  account;  and  he  has 
often  regretted  that  no  naturalist  has  established 
shore-lectures  at  some  watering-place,  like  those 
up  hill  and  down  dale  field-lectures  which,  in 
pleasant  Ijygone  Cambridge  days,  Professor  Sedg- 
wick used  to  give  to  young  geologists,  and  Pro- 
fessor Henslow  to  young  botanists. 

This  want,  however,  bids  foir  to  be  supplied 
at  last.  That  most  pious  and  most  learned  natu- 
ralist, Mr.  Gosse,  whose  works  will  be  so  often 
(juoted  in  these  pages,  purposes,  it  is  understood, 
to  establish  this  summer  a  regular  shore-class, 
I)robably  at  Weymouth.  And  I  advise  any  read- 
er whose  fancy  such  a  project  pleases,  to  apply  to 
him  for  detuils  of  the  scheme,  cither  at  his  own 
house,  58  Huntingdon  Street,  IJarnsbury  Park, 
IslingfDii,  or  at  the  Linntvan  or  Microscopic  So- 
ciety. 

In  the  nionn  while,  to  show  something  of  what 
such  a  chws  might  l)c,  let  me  put  myself,  in  imagi- 
nation, in  ]\Ir.  Gosse's  place,  and  do  his  work  for 
him  for  half  an  hour,  though  in  a  far  more  shal- 
low and  rlumny  way. 

Leaving  Weymouth  l<>  liini,  let  mc  take  yon 
to  a  shore  where  I  am  mon-  at  Immc,  aiid  for 


52  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

whose  richness  I  can  vouch,  and  choose  our  sea- 
son and  our  day  to  start  forth,  on  some  glorious 
morning  of  one  of  our  Italian  springs,  to  see 
what  last  night's  easterly  gale  has  swept  from  the 
populous  shallows  of  Torbay,  and  east  up,  high 
and  dry,  on  Paignton  sands. 

Torbay  is  a  place  which  should  be  as  much 
endeared  to  the  naturalist  as  to  the  patriot  and 
to  the  artist.  We  cannot  gaze  on  its  blue  ring 
of  water,  and  the  great  limestone  bluffs  which 
bound  it  to  the  north  and  south,  without  a  glow 
passing  through  our  hearts,  as  we  remember  the 
terrible  and  glorious  pageant  which  passed  by  in 
the  glorious  July  days  of  1588,  when  the  Spanish 
Armada  ventured  slowly  past  Berry  Head,  with 
Elizabeth's  gallant  pack  of  Devon  captains  (for 
the  London  fleet  had  not  yet  joined)  following 
fast  in  its  wake,  and  dashing  into  the  midst  of 
the  vast  line,  undismayed  by  size  and  numbers, 
while  their  kin  and  friends  stood  watchinir  and 
praying  on  the  cliffs,  spectators  of  Britain's 
Salamis.  The  white  line  of  houses,  too,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  bay,  is  Brixham,  famed  as 
the  landing-place  of  WUliam  of  Orange ;  the 
stone  on  the  pier-head,  which  marks  his  first 
footsteps  on  British  ground,  is  sacred  in  the  eyes 


THE   -WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  Oo 

of  all  true  English  "Whigs ;  and  close  by  stands 

the  castle  of  the  settler  of  Newfoundland,  Sir 

Humphrey  Gilbert,  Raleigh's  half-brother,  most 

learned  of  all  Elizabeth's  admirals  in  life,  most 

pious  and  heroic  in  death.     And  as  for  scenery, 

thouf^h  it  can  boast  of  neither  mountain  peak  or 

dark  fiord,  and  would  seem  tame  enough  in  the 

eyes  of  a  western  Scot  or  Irishman,  yet  Torbay 

surely  has  a  soft  beauty  of  its  own.    The  rounded 

hills  slope  gently  to  the  sea,  spotted  with  squares 

of  emerald   grass,   and   ricli   red    fallow    fields, 

and  parks   full   of  stately  timber-trees.      Long 

lines   of   tall    elms,  just   flushing   green   in   the 

spring   hedges,  run    down    to   the   very   water's 

edge,  their  boughs  unwarped  by  any  blast ;  and 

here  and  there  apple  orchards  arc  just  bursting 

into   flower   in    the   soft   sunshine,   and    narrow 

strips  of  water  meadow  line  the  glens,  where  the 

red   cattle   are   already   lounging   knee-deep    in 

richest   grass,   within   ten   yards    of   the    rocky 

pebble  beach.     The  shore  is  silent  now,  the  tide 

far  out :  but  six  hours  hence  it  will  I)c  hurling 

columns   of  rosy   foam   high   into    the    sunlight, 

and  sprinkling  passengers,  and  cattle,  and  trim 

gardens  whidi  liardly  know  what  frost  and  snow 

may  be,  but  see  the  flowers  of  autumn  meet  the 


54  GLAUCUS  ;   ou, 

flowers  of  spring,  and  the  old  year  linger  smiling- 
ly to  twine  a  garland  for  the  new. 

No  wonder  that  such  a  spot  as  Torquay,  with 
its  delicious  Itahan  climate,  and  endless  variety 
of  rich  woodland,  flowery  lawn,  fantastic  rock- 
cavern,  and  broad  bright  tide-sand,  sheltered 
from  every  wind  of  heaven  except  the  soft  south- 
east, should  have  become  a  favorite  haunt,  not 
only  for  invalids,  but  for  naturalists.  Indeed,  it 
may  well  claim  the  honor  of  being  the  original 
home  of  marine  zoology  and  botany  in  England, 
as  the  Frith  of  Forth,  under  the  auspices  of  Sir 
John  Dalzell,  has  been  for  Scotland.  For  here 
worked  Montagu,  Turton,  and  Mrs.  Griffith,  to 
whose  masculine  powers  of  research  English 
marine  botany  almost  owes  its  existence,  and 
who  still  survives,  at  an  age  long  beyond  the 
natural  term  of  man,  to  see,  in  her  cheerful  and 
honored  old  age,  that  knowledge  become  popular 
and  general,  which  she  pursued  for  many  a  year 
unassisted  and  alone.  And  here  too,  now,  Dr. 
Battersby  possesses  a  collection  of  shells,  inferior, 
perhaps,  to  hardly  any  in  England.  Torbay, 
moreover,  from  the  variety  of  its  rocks,  aspects, 
and  sea-floors,  where  limestones  alternate  with 
traps,  and  traps  with  slates,  while  at  the  valley- 


THE    "WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  55 

mouths  the  soft  sandstones  and  hard  conglomer- 
ates of  the  new  red  series  slope  down  into  the 
tepid  and  shallow  waves,  affords  an  abundance 
and  variety  of  animal  and  vegetable  life,  un- 
equalled, perhaps,  in  any  other  part  of  Great 
Britain.  It  cannot  boast,  certainly,  of  those 
strange  deep-sea  forms  which  Messrs.  Alder. 
Goodsir,  and  Laskey  dredge  among  the  lochs 
of  the  western  Highlands,  and  the  sub-marine 
mountain  glens  of  the  Zetland  sea ;  but  it  has 
its  own  varieties,  its  own  ever  fresh  novelties ; 
and  in  spite  of  all  the  research  which  has  been 
lavished  on  its  shores,  a  naturalist  cannot  now 
work  there  for  a  winter  without  discoverins:  forms 
new  to  science,  or  meeting  with  curiosities  which 
have  escaped  all  observers,  since  the  lynx  eye  of 
Montagu  e.'^pied  them  full  fifty  years  ago. 

Follow  us,  then,  reader,  in  imagination,  out  of 
the  gay  watering-placo,  with  its  London  shops 
and  London  equipages,  along  the  broad  road 
beneath  the  .sunny  limestone  clilf,  tufted  with 
golden  furze;  past  tho  huge  oaks  and  green 
filopc.H  of  Tor  Abbey  ;  and  pa^t  the  fanta.stif 
rocks  of  Livermead,  scrtDjicd  by  the  waves  into 
a  labyrintii  of  <loiib!(;  and  triple  caves,  like  Hin- 
doo  temj)Ies,    ujtbornc    on    pillars    banded    with 


56  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

yellow  and  white  and  red,  a  week's  study,  in 
form  and  color  and  chiaro-oscuro,  for  any  art- 
ist; and  a  mile  or  so  further  along  a  pleasant 
road,  with  landlocked  glimpses  of  the  bay,  to 
the  broad  sheet  of  sand  which  lies  between  the 
village  of  Paignton  and  the  sea,  —  sands  trodden 
a  hundred  times  by  Montagu  and  Turton,  per- 
haps, by  Dillwyn  and  Gaertnei",  and  many  another 
pioneer  of  science.  And  once  there,  before  we 
look  at  anything  else,  come  down  straight  to  the 
sea  marge ;  for  yonder  lies,  just  left  by  the  retii-ing 
tide,  a  mass  of  life  such  as  you  will  seldom  see 
again.  It  is  somewhat  ugly,  perhaps,  at  first  sight ; 
for  ankle-deep  are  spread,  for  some  ten  yards  long 
by  five  broad,  huge  dirty  shells,  as  large  as  the 
hand,  each  with  its  loathly  gray  and  black  tongue 
hanging  out,  a  confused  mass  of  slimy  death.  Let 
us  walk  on  to  some  cleaner  heap,  and  leave  these, 
the  great  Lutraria  elUjitica,  which  have  been 
lying  buried  by  thousands  in  the  sandy  mud,  each 
with  the  point  of  its  long  siphon  above  the  surface, 
suckinof  in  and  drivinj;  out  ajirain  the  salt  water  on 
which  it  feeds,  till  last  night's  ground-swell  shifted 
the  sea  bottom,  and  drove  them  up  hither  to  per- 
ish helpless,  but  not  useless,  on  the  beach. 

See,  dose  by  is  another  shell  bed,  quite   as 


THE    AVONDEUS    OF    THE    SHORE.  0/ 

large,  but  comely  enough  to  please  any  eye. 
"What  a  variety  of  forms  and  colors  are  there, 
amid  the  purple  and  olive  wreaths  of  wrack,  and 
bladder-weed,  and  tangle,  (oar-weed,  as  they  call 
it  in  the  south.)  and  the  delicate  green  ribbons 
of  the  Zostcra,  (the  only  English  flowering  plant 
which  grows  beneath  the  sea,)  surely  contra- 
dicting, as  do  several  other  forms,  that  some- 
what hasty  assertion  of  Mr.  Ruskin,  that  nature 
makes  no  ribbons,  unless  with  a  midrib,  and  I 
know  not  what  other  limitations,  which  seem  to 
me  to  exist  only  in  Mr.  Ruskin's  fertile,  but 
fastidious  fancy.  "What  are  they  all  ?  What  are 
the  long  white  razors  ?  What  are  the  delicate 
green-gray  scymitars  ?  What  arc  the  tapering 
brown  spires  ?  What  the  tufts  of  delicate  yellow 
plant*!,  like  squirrels'  tails,  and  lobsters'  horns, 
and  tamarisks,  and  fir-trees,  and  all  other  finely 
I'ut  animal  and  vegetable  forms  ?  AVhat  are  the 
groups  of  gray  bladders,  witli  something  like  a 
little  bud  at  the  tip  ?  What  are  the  hundreds 
of  little  pink-striped  pears  ?  What  those  tiny 
babies'  heads,  covered  with  gray  i)rickles  instead 
of  hair?  'Ilic  great  red  star-fish,  which  Ulster 
children  call  "  the  bad  man's  hands  "  ;  and  the 
great  whelks,  which   the  youth  of  IMusselburgh 


58  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

know  as  "  roaring  buckies,"  these  we  have  seen  ; 
but  what,  O  what,  are  the  red  capsicums  ?  — 

Yes,  what  arc  the  red  capsicums  ?  and  why 
are  they  poking,  snapping,  starting,  crawling, 
tumbling,  wildly  over  each  other,  rattling  about 
the  huge  mahogany  cockles,  as  big  as  a  man's 
two  fists,  out  of  which  they  are  protruded  ? 
Mark  them  well,  for  you  will  perhaps  never  see 
them  again.  They  are  a  Mediterranean  species, 
or  rather  thi-ee  species,  left  behind  upon  these 
extreme  southwestern  coasts,  probably  at  the 
vanishing  of  the  same  warmer  ancient  epoch, 
which  clothed  the  Lizard  point  with  the  Cornish 
heath,  and  the  Killarney  mountains  with  Spanish 
saxifrages,  and  other  relics  of  a  flora  whose  home 
is  now  the  Iberian  peninsula,  and  the  sunny 
cliffs  of  the  Riviera.  Eare  in  every  other  shore, 
even  in  the  west,  it  abounds  in  Torbay  to  so 
prodigious  an  amount,  that  the  dredge,  after 
five  minutes'  scrape,  will  often  come  up  choke 
full  of  this  great  cockle  only.  You  will  see  tens 
of  thousands  of  them  in  every  cove  for  miles 
this  day,  and  every  heavy  winter's  tide  brings 
up  an  equal  multitude,  —  a  seeming  waste  of  life, 
which  would  be  awful  in  our  eyes,  were  not  the 
Divine    Ruler,   as    His    custom   is,   making  this 


THE    W0XDER3    OF   THE    SHORE.  59 

destruction  the  means  of  fresh  creation,  by  bury- 
ing them  in  the  sands,  as  soon  as  washed  on 
shore,  to  fertilize  the  strata  of  some  future 
world.  It  is  but  a  shell-fish  truly  ;  but  the 
great  Cuvier  thought  it  remarkable  enough  to 
devote  to  its  anatomy  elaborate  descriptions 
and  drawings,  which  have  done  more  perhaps 
than  any  others  to  illustrate  the  curious  economy 
of  the  whole  class  of  bivalve,  or  double-shelled, 
raollusca.  If  you  wish  to  know  more  about  it 
than  we  can  tell  you,  open  Mr.  Gosse's  last  book, 
the  Aquarium,  at  p.  222. 

"  iMany  persons  are  aware  that  the  common 
cockle  can  perform  gymnastic  feats  of  no  mean 
celebrity,  but  the  evolutions  of  Signor  Tuber- 
culato  are  worth  seeing.  Some  of  the  troupe  I 
had  put  into  a  pan  of  sea-water ;  others  I  had 
turned  out  info  a  dish  dry,  as  knowing  that  an 
occasional  exposure  to  tlic  air  is  a  contingency 
that  they  are  not  unused  to.  By  and  by,  as  we 
were  fjuictly  reading,  our  attention  was  attracted 
to  the  table  where  the  dish  was  placed,  by  a 
rattUng  uproar,  as  if  flint-stones  were  rolling  one 
over  the  other  about  the  disli.  '  O  look  at  the 
cockles  ! '  was  tlie  exclamation  ;  and  tliey  were 
indeed  displaying  their  agilily,  and  their  beauty 


GO  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

too,  in  fine  style.  The  valves  of  the  largest  were 
gaping  to  the  extent  of  threte  quarters  of  an 
inch ;  but  the  intermediate  space  was  filled  up 
by  the  spongy-looking,  fleshy  mantle,  of  a  semi- 
pellucid  orange  hue.  At  one  end  protruded  the 
siphons,  two  thick,  short  tubes,  soldered,  as  it 
were,  into  one,  and  enveloped  on  all  sides  in  a 
shaggy  fringe  of  cirri,  or  tentacles.  The  circular 
orifices  of  these  tubes  —  small  holes,  perfectly 
round,  with  a  white  border  —  had  a  curious  ap- 
pearance, as  we  looked  at  the  heart-shaped  end 
of  the  valves.  The  discharging  orifices,  however, 
were  but  rarely  visible,  being  usually  closed,  while 
the  others  remained  constantly  open.  But  these 
things  were  what  we  afterwards  saw.  For  some 
time  we  could  look  at  nothing  but  the  magnificent 
foot,  and  the  curious  manner  in  which  it  was  used. 
"  The  two  lips  of  the  mantle  suddenly  separate, 
and,  gaping  widely  all  along  the  front,  recede 
nearly  to  the  valves ;  while  at  the  same  moment 
a  huge  organ  is  thrust  out,  somewhat  like  a 
tongue,  nearly  cylindrical,  but  a  little  flattened 
and  tapering  to  a  point.  Its  surface  is  smooth, 
and  brilliantly  glossy,  and  its  color  a  fine  rich 
scarlet,  approaching  to  oi'ange ;  but  a  better 
idea  of  it  than  can  be  conveyed  by  any  descrip- 


TOE    AVOXDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  61 

tion  will  be  obtained  by  supposing  it  to  be  made 
of  polished  cornelian." 

Hardly  that,  most  amiable  and  amusing  of 
naturalists :  it  is  too  opaque  for  cornelian ;  and 
the  ti'ue  symbol  is,  as  I  said  before,  in  form, 
size,  and  color,  one  of  those  great  red  capsicums 
which  hang  drying  in  every  Covent- Garden 
seedsman's  window.  Yet  is  your  simile  better 
than  the  guess  of  a  certain  Countess,  Avho, 
entering  a  room  wherein  a  couple  of  Cardium 
tuberculatum  were  waltzing  about  a  plate,  ex- 
claimed, "  O  dear  !  I  always  heard  that  ray 
pretty  red  coral  came  out  of  a  fish,  and  here  it 
is  all  alive  !  " 

"  This  beautiful  and  versatile  foot,"  continues 
Mr.  Gosse,  "  is  suddenly  thrust  out  sideways,  to 
the  distance  of  four  inches  from  the  shell ;  then, 
its  point  being  curved  backwards,  the  animal 
pushes  it  strongly  against  any  opposing  object, 
by  the  resistance  of  which  the  whole  animal, 
shell  and  all,  makes  a  considerable  step  forwards. 
If  the  cockle  were  on  its  native  sands,  the  leaps 
thus  made  would  doubtless  br'  more  precise  in 
their  direction,  and  much  more  efTectivc :  but 
cooped  up  with  its  fellows,  in  a  <lcop  di.sli,  all 
these    Herculean   eflTorts  availed   only  to   knock 


62  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

the  massive  shells  against  the  sides,  or  roll  them 
irregularly  over  each  other. 

"  It  was  curious  to  notice  the  extent  to  which 
the  interior  of  the  cockle  was  revealed,  when  the 
mouth  gaped,  and  the  foot  was  thrust  out.  By 
the  aid  of  a  candle  we  could  see  the  interior 
surfaces  of  both  valves,  as  it  seemed,  almost  to 
the  very  backs.  I  say,  as  it  seemed,  for  so  thin 
is  the  mantle  where  it  lines  the  shell,  and  so 
closely  does  it  adhere  to  it,  that  every  character 
of  the  valves,  whether  as  regards  color  or  ir- 
regularity of  surface,  was  distinctly  visible  ;  and 
thus  we  were  able  to  distinguish  the  species, 
not  only  by  their  external  marks,  but  by  one 
character  drawn  from  the  interior,  —  the  ribs 
in  tuberculatum  extending  only  half-way  across 
the  valves,  while  in  aculeatum  they  reach  back 

to  the  beaks The   former  is   much   the 

finer  species ;  the  valves  are  more  globose  and 
of  a  warmer  color;  those  that  I  have  seen  are 
even  more  spinous.  The  mantle  is  of  a  rich 
deep  orange,  with  elevated  ribs,  corresponding 
to  those  of  the  valves,  of  a  yellow  hue.  These 
ribs  of  the  mantle  are  visible  in  aculeatum  also, 
but  in  tuberculatum  they  are  mucli  more  strongly 
marked,  both  in  form  and  color.     The  siphons 


THE    AVONDERS    OF   THE    SIIOKE.  G3 

(lisplciy  the  same  orange  hue  as  the  mantle-lips, 
and  have  a  finer  appearance  than  in  the  other 
species ;  the  interior  of  the  orifices  in  both  is 
covered  with  a  layer  of  white  pearly  substance, 
almost  luminous.  In  the  foot  of  tuhercvlatum, 
which  agrees,  in  the  particulars  already  men- 
tioned, with  that  of  its  congener,  I  observed  a 
beautiful  opalescent  gleam  when  under  water." 

"C  tuhercidalum"  continues  Mr.  Gosse,  "  is 
far  the  finest  species.  The  valves  are  moi'e 
globose  and  of  a  warmer  color  ;  those  that  I  have 
are  even  more  spinous."  Such  may  have  been 
the  ca.se  in  his  specimens  ;  but  it  has  occurred 
to  the  writer  now  and  then  to  dredge  specimens 
of  C.  aculcatitiii,  which  had  escaped  that  rolling 
on  the  sand  fatal  in  old  age  to  its  delicate  spines, 
and  which  e«iualled  in  color,  size,  and  pcrfect- 
ness,  the  noble  one  figured  in  poor  dear  old  1)r. 
Turton's  "  British  Bivalves."  Besides,  ucnleatnm 
is  a  far  thinner  and  more  delicate  shell.  And  a 
third  P[)ecie(*,  f\  erhinatxivi,  with  curves  more 
graceful  and  continuous,  is  to  be  found  now  and 
then  with  the  two  former,  in  which  each  point, 
instead  of  degenerating  into  a  knot,  as  in  (tibcr- 
riilntuni,  or  developing  from  delicate,  fiat,  brier- 
prickles  into  long,  straight  lliorns,  as  in  arukatwn, 


64  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

is  close-set  to  its  fellow,  and  curved  at  the  point 
transversely  to  the  shell,  the  whole  being  thus 
horrid  with  hundreds  of  strong  tenterhooks,  mak- 
ing his  castle  impregnable  to  the  raveners  of 
the  deep.  For  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  these 
prickles  are  meant  as  weapons  of  defence, 
without  which  so  savory  a  morsel  as  the  mol- 
lusk  within  (cooked  and  eaten  largely  on  some 
pai'ts  of  our  south  coast)  would  be  a  staple  ar- 
ticle of  food  for  sea  beasts  of  prey.  And  it  is 
noteworthy,  first,  that  the  defensive  thorns,  which 
are  permanent  on  the  two  thinner  species,  acu- 
leatum  and  echinatum,  disappear  altogether  on 
the  thicker  one,  tuhercidatum,  as  old  age  gives 
him  a  solid  and  heavy  globose  shell;  and  next, 
that  he  too,  while  young  and  tender,  and  liable 
therefore  to  be  bored  through  by  whelks  and 
such  murderous  univalves,  does  actually  possess 
the  same  brier-prickles  which  his  thinner  cousins 
keep  throughout  life.  Nevertheless,  (and  this 
is  a  curious  fact,  which  makes,  like  most  other 
facts,  pretty  strongly  against  the  transmutation  of 
species,  and  the  production  of  organs  by  circum- 
stances demanding  them,)  prickles,  in  all  three 
species,  are,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  useless  in  Torbay, 
where  no  seal  or  wolf-fish,  (AnarrMchas  lupus,) 


THE    -VVOXDEnS    OF   THE    SHORE.  65 

or  other  shell-crushing  pairs  of  jaws,  wander, 
terrible  to  lobster  and  to  cockle.  Originally  in- 
tended, as  we  suppose,  to  face  the  strong-toothed 
monsters  of  the  Mediterranean,  these  foreigners 
have  been  left  behind  on  shores  Avhere  their 
armor  is  not  now  needed :  and  yet  centuries  of 
idleness  and  security  have  not  been  able  to  per- 
suade them  to  lay  it  by  ;  as  it  is  written,  "  They 
continue  this  day  as  at  tlie  beginning ;  Thou  hast 
given  them  a  law  which  shall  never  be  broken." 

Enough  of  Cardhim  Uihercidatum.  "What  are 
the  names  of  the  other  shells  which  you  have 
gathered,  any  Introduction  to  Conchology  will 
tell  you  ;  and  the  Sea-side  Book  will  give  you 
many  a  curious  fact  as  to  their  habits.  If  you 
wish  to  know  more,  you  must  consult  that 
new  collection  of  true  fairy  tales,  Dr.  John- 
ston's "  Lectures  on  Conchology."  But  the  lit- 
tle pink  pears  are  rare,  hundreds  of  them  as 
there  hapi)cn  to  be  here  to-day.  They  arc  a 
delicate  sea-anemone,*  whose  beautiful  disc  you 
may  sec  well  engraved  in  Gosse's  "  Naturalist  in 
Devon."  Thoy  ndlicrc  by  tliousands  to  the 
undcr-sidc  of  loose  stones  among  the  sand,  and 
some  colony  of  them  has  been  uprooted  by  the 
♦  Actinia  anguicumn. 

5 


G6  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

pitiless  roll  of  the  ground-swell,  and  drifted  in 
here,  sick  and  sad,  but  not  so  far  gone  but  that 
each,  in  a  jar  of  salt-water,  will  expand  again  into 
a  delicate  compound  flower,  whose  "snake-locked" 
arms  are  all  marbled  with  pellucid  grays  and 
browns,  till  they  look  like  a  living  mist,  hovering 
above  the  pink-striped  cylinder  of  the  body. 

There  are  a  hundred  more  things  to  be  talked 
of  here :  but  we  must  defer  the  examination  of 
them  till  our  return ;  for  it  wants  an  hour  yet  of 
the  dead  low  spring-tide ;  and  ere  we  go  home, 
we  will  spend  a  few  minutes  at  least  on  the  rocks 
at  Livermead,  where  awaits  us  a  strong-backed 
quarryman,  with  a  strong-backed  crowbar,  as  is  to 
be  hoped,  (for  he  snapped  one  right  across  there 
yesterday,  falling  miserably  on  his  back  into  a 
pool  thereby,)  and  we  will  verify  Mr.  Gosse's 
observation,  that,  — 

"  When  once  we  have  begun  to  look  with  curi- 
osity on  the  strange  things  that  ordinary  people 
pass  over  without  notice,  our  wonder  is  continu- 
ally excited  by  the  variety  of  phase,  and  often  by 
the  uncouthness  of  form,  under  which  some  of 
the  meaner  creatures  are  presented  to  us.  And 
this  is  very  specially  the  case  with  the  inhabitants 
of  the  sea.     We  can  scarcely  poke  or  pry  for  an 


THE  "WONDERS  OF  THE  SHORE.      hi 

hour  among  the  rocks,  at  low-water  mark,  or 
walk,  with  an  observant  downcast  eye,  along  the 
beach  after  a  gale,  without  finding  some  oddly 
fashioned,  suspicious-looking  being,  unlike  any 
form  of  life  that  we  have  seen  before.  The  dark 
concealed  interior  of  the  sea  becomes  thus  in- 
vested with  a  fi'esh  mystery ;  its  vast  recesses 
appear  to  be  stored  witli  all  imaginable  forms ; 
and  we  are  tempted  to  think  there  must  be  mul- 
titudes of  living  creatures  whose  very  figure  and 
structure  have  never  yet  been  suspected. 

'  O  sea!  old  sea!   wlio  yet  knows  half 
Of  thy  wonders  or  thy  pride ! '  " 

Gosse's  Aquariatn,  \>p.  220,  227. 

But  first,  as  after  descending  tlic  gap  in  the 
sea-wall  we  walk  along  the  ribbed  fioor  of  hard 
yellow  sand,  1)C  so  kind  as  to  keep  a  sharp 
look-out  for  a  round  gi-ay  disc,  about  as  big 
a.s  a  i)cnny-picce,  peeping  out  on  the  surface- 
No  ;  that  is  not  it,  that  little  lump :  open  it, 
and  you  will  find  within  one  of  tlie  common 
little  Vrniis  f/iillina.  —  (They  have  given  it  some 
new  name  now,  and  no  tlianks  to  tlicm :  they 
arc  always  clianging  the  names,  those  closet  col- 
lectors, instead  of  studying  the  live  animals 
where  Nature  has  put  thcra,  in  wliich  cjisc  they 


G8  GLAUCUS  ;   OK, 

would  have  no  time  for  word-inventing.  And  we 
verily  suspect  that  the  names  grow,  like  other 
things ;  at  least,  they  get  longer  and  longer  and 
more  jaw-breaking  every  year.)  The  little 
bivalve,  however,  finding  itself  left  by  the  tide, 
has  wisely  shut  up  its  siphons,  and,  by  means  of 
its  foot  and  its  edges,  buried  itself  in  a  comfort- 
able bath  of  cool  wet  sand,  till  the  sea  shall  come 
back,  and  make  it  safe  to  crawl  and  lounge  about 
on  the  surface,  smoking  the  sea-water  instead  of 
tobacco.  Neither  is  that  lump  what  we  seek. 
Touch  it,  and  out  poke  a  pair  of  astonished  and 
inquiring  horns  and  a  little  sharp  muzzle :  it  is  a 
long-armed  crab,  who  saw  us  coming,  and  wisely 
shovelled  himself  into  the  sand  by  means  of  his 
nether-end.  Neither  is  that ;  though  it  might 
be  the  hole  down  which  what  we  seek  has  van- 
ished :  but  that  burrow  contains  one  of  the  long 
white  razors  which  you  saw  cast  on  shore  at 
Paignton.  The  boys  close  by  are  boring  for  them 
with  iron  rods  armed  with  a  screw,  and  taking 
them  in  to  sell  in  Torquay  market,  as  excellent 
food.  But  there  is  one,  at  last !  —  a  gray  disc 
pouting  up  through  the  sand.  Touch  it,  and  it  is 
gone  down,  quick  as  light.  We  must  dig  it  out, 
and  carefully,  for  it  is  a  delicate  monster.    At  last, 


THE   WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  69 

after  ten  minutes'  careful  work,  we  have  brought 
up,  from  a  foot  depth  or  more  —  what  ?  A  thick, 
dirty,  slimy  worm,  without  head  or  tail,  form  or 
color.  A  slug  has  more  artistic  beauty  about 
liira.  Be  it  so.  At  home  in  the  aquarium, 
(where,  alas !  he  will  live  but  for  a  day  or  two, 
under  the  new  irritation  of  light,)  he  will  make  a 
very  different  figure.  That  is  one  of  the  rarest 
of  British  sea-animals.  Actinia  chrt/saiithellum, 
though  really  he  is  no  Actinia,*  and  his  value 
consists,  not  merely  in  his  beauty,  (though  that 
is  not  small,)  but  in  his  belonging  to  what  the 
long-word-makers  call  an  "interosculant"  group, 
—  a  party  of  genera  and  species  which  connect 
families  scientifically  far  apart,  filling  up  a  fresh 
link  in  the  great  chain,  or  rather  the  great  net- 
work, of  zoological  classification.  And  here  we 
have  a  simple,  and,  as  it  were,  crude  form;  of 
which,  if  we  dared  to  indulge  in  reveries,  we  might 
say,  that  the  Divine  Word  realized  it  before  either 
sea-anemonc9  or  holothurians,  and  then  went  on 
to  perfect  the  idea  contained  in  it  in  two  different 
directions ;  dividing.'  it  into  two  different  families, 
and  making  on  its  model,  by  adding  new  organs, 
and  taking  away  old  onc.«,  in  one  direction  the 
♦  Now  "  rcnchin,"  of  Jlr.  Go»sc. 


70  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

whole  family  oi  Actinia;,  (sea-anemones,)  and  in 
a  quite  opposite  one  the  Holothurice,  those  strange 
sea-cucumbers,  with  their  mouth-fringe  of  feath- 
ery gills,  of  which  you  shall  see  some  anon. 
Not  (understand  well)  that  there  has  been  any 
'•  tx-ansmutation  "  or  "  development  of  species," 
(of  individuals,  as  it  ought  honestly  to  be  called, 
if  the  notion  iS  intended  to  represent  a  supposed 
fact,)  —  a  theory  as  unsupported  by  experiment 
and  induction,  as  it  is  by  a  priori  reason :  but 
that  there  has  been,  in  the  Creative  Mind,  as 
it  gave  life  to  new  species,  a  development  of 
the  idea  on  which  older  species  were  created, 
in  order  that  every  mesh  of  the  great  net  might 
gradually  be  supplied,  and  there  should  be  no 
gaps  in  the  perfect  variety  of  Nature's  forms. 
This  development  is  the  only  one  of  which  we 
can  conceive,  if  we  allow  that  a  Mind  presides 
over  the  universe,  and  not  a  mere  brute  neces- 
sity, a  Law  (absurd  misnomer)  without  a  Law- 
giver ;  and  to  it  (strangely  enough  coinciding 
here  and  there  with  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  Eter- 
nal Ideas  existing  in  the  Divine  Mind)  all  fresh 
inductive  discovery  seems  to  point  more  and  more ; 
and  especially  Professor  Owen's  invaluable  tracts 
on  the  Homology  of  the  Vertebrate  Skeleton. 


THE   -WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  71 

Let  US  speak  freely  a  few  words  on  this  im- 
portant matter.  Geology  has  disproved  the  old 
popular  belief  that  the  universe  was  brought  into 
being  as  it  now  exists,  by  a  single  fiat.  We 
know  that  the  work  has  been  gradual ;  that  the 
earth 

"  In  tracts  of  fluent  heat  began, 
The  seeming  prey  of  cyclic  storms, 
The  home  of  seeming  random  forms. 
Till,  at  the  last,  arose  the  man." 

And  we  know,  also,  that  these  forms,  seeming 
random  as  they  are,  have  appeared  according  to 
a  law,  which,  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  has  been 
only  the  whole  one  of  progress,  —  lower  animals 
(though  we  cannot  say  the  lowest)  appearing 
first,  and  man,  the  highest  mammal,  "the  roof 
and  crown  of  things,"  one  of  the  latest  in  the 
series.  "NVc  liavc  no  more  right,  let  it  be  ob- 
served, to  say  that  man,  the  highest,  appeared 
last,  than  that  the  lowest  appeared  first,  l^oth 
may  have  been  tlic  case ;  but  there  is  utterly  no 
proof  of  cither ;  and  as  we  know  that  species  of 
animals  lower  llian  those  which  already  existed 
appeared  again  and  again  during  tlie  various 
eras,  so  it  is  ciuite  possible  that  they  may  be 
appearing  now,  and  may  appear  hereafter :  and 


72  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

that  for  every  extinct  Dodo  or  Moa  a  new  species 
may  be  created,  to  keep  up  the  equilibrium  of  the 
whole.  This  is  but  a  surmise :  but  it  may  be 
wise,  perhaps,  just  now,  to  confess  boldly,  even  to 
insist  on,  its  possibility,  lest  the  advocates  of  the 
"  Vestiges  of  Creation  "  theory  should  claim  the 
notion  as  making  for  them,  and  fancy,  from  our 
unwillingness  to  allow  it,  that  there  would  be 
aught  in  it,  if  proved,  contrary  to  Christianity. 

Let  us,  therefore,  say  boldly,  that  there  has 
been  a  "  progress  of  species,"  and  that  there  may 
be  again,  in  the  true  sense  of  that  term :  but  say, 
as  boldly,  that  the  Transmutation  theory  is  not 
one  of  a  progress  of  species  at  all,  which  would  be 
a  change  in  the  idea  of  the  species,  taking  place  in 
the  Divine  Mind,  —  in  plain  words,  the  creation 
of  a  new  species.  "What  the  Transmutationists 
really  mean,  if  they  would  express  themselves 
clearly,  or  carefully  analyze  their  own  notions,  is 
a  physical  and  actual  change,  not  of  species,  but 
of  individuals,  of  already  existing  living  beings 
created  according  to  one  idea,  into  other  living 
beings  created  according  to  another  idea.  And  of 
this,  in  spite  of  the  apparent  change  of  species  in 
the  marvellous  metamorphoses  of  lower  animals. 
Nature  has  as  yet  given  us  no  instance  among 


THE   "WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  73 

all  the  facts  which  have  been  observed ;  and 
there  is,  therefore,  an  almost  infinite  inductive 
probability  against  it.  As  far  as  we  know  yet, 
though  all  the  dreams  of  the  Transmutationists 
are  outdone  by  the  transformations  of  many  a 
polype,  yet  the  species  remain  as  permanent  and 
strongly  marked  as  in  the  highest  mammal.  Such 
progress  as  experimental  science  actually  shows 
us,  is  quite  awful  and  beautiful  enough  to  keep 
us  our  lives  long  in  wonder  ;  but  it  is  one  which 
perfectly  agrees  with,  and  may  be  perfectly  ex- 
plained by,  the  simple  old  belief,  which  the  Bible 
sets  before  us,  of  a  Living  God:  not  a  mere  past 
^vill,  such  as  the  Koran  sets  forth,  creating  once 
and  for  all,  and  then  leaving  the  universe,  to  use 
Goethe's  simile,  "  to  spin  round  his  finger " ; 
nor  again,  an  "  all-pervading  spirit,"  words  which 
are  mere  contradictory  jargon,  concealing,  from 
those  who  utter  them,  blank  IMatcrialism  :  but 
One  who  works  in  all  things  which  have  obeyed 
Ilim  to  will  and  to  do  of  His  good  plciusure, 
keeping  Ili.s  abysmal  and  self-perfect  purpose, 
yet  altering  the  methods  by  which  that  purpose 
is  ftttjiincd,  from  a-on  to  jron,  ay,  from  moment 
to  moment,  for  ever  various,  yet  for  ever  the 
same.    This  great  and  yet  most  blessed  paradox 


74  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

of  the  Changeless  God,  who  yet  can  say,  "  It 
repenteth  me,"  and,  "  Behold,  I  work  a  new  thing 
on  the  earth,"  is  revealed  no  less  by  nature  than 
by  Scripture ;  the  changeableness,  not  of  caprice 
or  imperfection,  but  of  an  Infinite  Maker  and 
"  Poietes,"  drawing  ever  fresh  forms  out  of  the 
inexhaustible  treasury  of  the  primeval  mind ;  and 
yet  never  throwing  away  a  conception  to  which 
He  has  once  given  actual  birth  in  time  and  space, 
but  (to  compare  reverently  small  things  and 
great)  lovingly  repeating  it,  reapplying  it ;  pro- 
ducing the  same  effects  by  endlessly  different 
methods ;  or  so  delicately  modifying  the  method 
that,  as  by  the  turn  of  a  hair,  it  shall  produce 
endlessly  diverse  effects ;  looking  back,  as  it 
were,  ever  and  anon  over  the  great  work  of  all 
the  ages,  to  retouch  it,  and  fill  up  each  chasm 
in  the  scheme,  which  for  some  good  purpose  had 
been  left  open  in  earlier  worlds  ;  or  leaving  some 
open  (the  forms,  for  instance,  necessary  to  con- 
nect the  bimana  and  the  quadrumana)  to  be 
filled  up  perhaps  hereafter  when  the  world  needs 
them ;  the  handiwork,  in  short,  of  a  living  and 
loving  Mind,  perfect  in  His  own  eternity,  but 
stooping  to  work  in  time  and  space,  and  there 
rejoicing  Himself  in  the  work  of  His  own  hands, 


THE    WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  75 

and  in  His  eternal  Sabbaths  ceasing  in  rest  in- 
effable, that  He  may  look  on  that  which  He  hath 
made,  and  behold  it  is  very  good. 

"We  speak,  of  course,  under  correction ;  for 
this  conclusion  is  emphatically  matter  of  induc- 
tion, and  must  be  verified  or  modified  by  ever- 
fresh  facts :  but  we  meet  Avith  many  a  Christian 
passage  in  scientific  books,  which  seems  to  us  to 
go,  not  too  far,  but  rather  not  far  enough,  in 
asserting  the  God  of  the  Bible,  as  Saint  Paul 
says,  "  not  to  have  left  Himself  without  wit- 
ness," in  nature  itself,  that  He  is  the  God  of 
grace.  Why  speak  of  tlie  God  of  nature  and 
tlic  God  of  grace  as  two  antitlietical  terras  ? 
The  IJiblc  never,  in  a  single  instance,  makes  the 
distinction  ;  juid,  surely,  if  God  be  (as  He  is) 
the  Eternal  and  Unchangeable  One,  .ind  if  (as 
wc  all  confess)  the  universe  bears  the  impress  of 
Ili.s  signet,  we  have  no  right,  in  the  present  infan- 
tile state  of  science,  to  put  arljitrary  limits  of  our 
own  to  tlic  revelation  whicli  Ho  may  Iiave  thought 
good  to  make  of  Himself  in  nature.  Nay,  ratlier, 
let  us  believe  that,  if  our  eyes  were  opened,  wc 
should  fulfil  tlie  n(|uiremcnt  of  Genius,  to  "  see 
tlie  universal  in  tlic  particular,"  by  seeing  God's 
uhol(;  likenc'-;,  Ili-s  wboln  glory,  reflected  as  in  a 


76  GLAUCUS  ;  OR, 

mirror  even  in  the  meanest  flower ;  and  that 
nothing  but  the  dulness  of  our  own  sinful  souls 
prevents  them  from  seeing  day  and  night  in  all 
things,  however  small  or  trivial  to  human  eclec- 
ticism, the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  himself  fulfilling 
his  own  saying,  "My  Father  workcth  hitherto, 
and  I  work." 

And  therefore,  when  we  meet  with  such  an 
excellent  passage  as  this  :  *  — 

"  Thus  it  is  that  Nature  advances  step  by  step, 
gradually  bringing  out,  through  successive  stages 
of  being,  new  organs  and  new  faculties ;  and 
leaving,  as  she  moves  along,  at  every  step,  some 
animals  which  rise  no  higher,  as  if  to  serve  for 
landmarks  of  her  progress  through  all  succeeding 
time.  And  this  it  is  which  makes  the  study  of 
comparative  anatomy  so  fascinating.  Not  that 
I  mean  to  favor  a  theory  of  *  development,^  which 
would  obliterate  all  idea  of  species,  by  suppos- 
ing that  the  more  compound  animal  forms  were 
developments  of  their  simple  ancestors.  For 
such  an  hypothesis.  Nature  gives  us  no  evidence  : 
but  she  gives  us,  through  all  her  domains,  the 
most  beautiful  and  diversified  proofs  of  an  ad- 
herence to  a  settled  order,  by  which  new  com- 
*  Harvey's  Sea-side  Book,  p.  166. 


TUE   "NVOKDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  77 

binations  are  continually  brought  out.  In  this 
order,  the  lowest  grades  of  being  have  certain 
characters,  above  which  they  do  not  rise,  but 
propagate  beings  as  simple  as  themselves.  Above 
them  are  others  which,  passing  through  stages 
in  their  infancy  equal  to  the  adult  condition  of 
those  below  them,  acquire,  when  at  maturity, 
a  perfection  of  organs  peculiarly  their  own.  Oth- 
ers again  rise  above  these,  and  their  structures 
become  gradually  compound ;  till,  at  last,  it 
may  be  said  that  the  simpler  animals  represent, 
as  in  a  glass,  the  scattered  organs  of  the  higher 
races." 

When  we  read  such  a  passage  as  this, 

and  confess,  as  we  must,  its  truth,  we  cannot 
help  sigliing  over  certain  expressions  in  it,  which 
<lo  unintentionally  coincide  with  the  very  theory 
which  Professor  Ilarvey  denies.  Is  this  progress 
supposed  to  take  place  in  time  and  space? — or  in 
the  mind  of  a  15eing  above  time  and  space,  who 
aflcrwards  •  reduces  to  act  and  fact,  in  time  and 
space,  just  so  much  and  no  more  of  that  prog- 
ress as  shall  seem  good  to  Ilim,  some  here, 
iomc  there;  not  binding  Himself  to  begin  at  the 
l()wc>t,  and  end  with  the  highest,  but  compen- 
sating and  balancing  the  lower  with  the  bi'dier 


78  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

in  each  successive  stage  of  our  planet?  This  last 
is  what  the  Professor  really  means,  we  doubt  not: 
but  then,  would  that  he  had  said  boldly,  that 
"God,"  and  not  "Nature,"  is  the  agent.  So 
would  he  have  raised  at  once  the  whole  matter 
from  the  ground  of  destiny  to  that  of  will,  from  the 
material  and  logical  ground  to  the  moral  and  spir- 
itual, from  time  and  space  into  ever-present  eter- 
nity. To  us  it  seems  (to  sum  up,  in  a  few  words, 
what  we  have  tried  to  say)  that  such  development 
and  progress  as  have  as  yet  been  actually  discov- 
ered in  nature,  have  been  proved,  especially  by 
Professor  Sedgwick  and  Mr.  Hugh  Miller,  to  bear 
every  trace  of  having  been  produced  by  succes- 
sive acts  of  thought  and  will  in  some  personal 
mind ;  which,  however  boundlessly  rich  and  pow- 
erful, is  still  the  Archetype  of  the  human  mind; 
and  therefore  (for  to  this  we  boldly  confess  we 
have  been  all  along  tending)  probably  capable, 
without  violence  to  its  properties,  of  becoming, 
like  the  human  mind,  incarnate. 

This  progress,  then,  in  the  Divine  works, 
though  tending  ever  to  perfection  in  the  very 
highest  sense,  need  not  be  always  forward  and 
upward,  according  to  the  laws  of  comparative 
anatomy.     It  is  possible,  therefore,  on  the  one 


TUE    AVONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  79 

hand,  that  the  idea  of  the  Chrj'santhcllum,  and 
its  congeners  Scolanthus  and  Chirodota,  has  been 
developed  downwards  into  the  far  lower  Actinia, 
as  well  as  upwards  into  the  higher  Holothurians  ; 
just  as  the  idea  of  a  fish  was  first  realized  in  the 
liiglicst  type  of  that  class,  and  not,  as  has  been 
too  hastily  supposed,  in  the  lowest ;  for  it  is  now 
discovered  that  the  sharks,  the  earliest  of  fish,  are 
really  higher,  not  lower,  in  the  scale  of  creation, 
than  those  salmons  and  perches  which  we  from 
liabit  consider  the  archetypes  and  lords  of  the  fin- 
ny tribes.  And  it  is  equally  possible  that  all  our 
dream  (though  right  in  many  another  case,  as  in 
that  of  the  .shark  just  quoted)  is  here  altogether 
wrong,  and  that  these  Chrysanthella  are  merely 
meant  to  fill  up,  for  the  sake  of  logical  perfection, 
the  space  between  the  rooted  Polypes  and  the 
free  Eciiinoderms.  Be  this  as  it  may,  there  is 
mother,  and  more  human,  source  of  interest 
il>out  this  quaint  animal  who  is  wriggling  him- 
self clean  in  the  glass  jar  of  f^alt  water ;  for  he 
is  one  of  the  many  curiosities  which  have  been 
adfled  to  our  fauna  by  that  humble  hero,  Mr. 
Charles  Peach,  the  self-taught  naturalist  of  Corn- 
wall, of  whom,  as  we  walk  on  toward  the  rocks, 
-omcthing  should   be  said,  or  rather  read  ;    for 


80  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

Mr.  Chambers,  in  an  often  quoted  passage  from 
his  Edinburgh  Journal,  which  we  must  have  the 
pleasure  of  quoting  once  again,  has  told  the  story 
better  than  we  can  tell  it :  — 

"  But  who  is  that  little  intelligent-looking  man 
in  a  faded  naval  uniform,  who  is  so  invariably  to 
be  seen  in  a  particular  central  seat  in  this 
section  ?  That,  gentle  reader,  is  perhaps  one  of 
the  most  interesting  men  who  attend  the  British 
Association.  He  is  only  a  private  in  the  mount- 
ed guard  (preventive  service)  at  an  obscure  part 
of  the  Cornwall  coast,  with  four  shillings  a  day, 
and  a  wife  and  nine  children,  most  of  whose 
education  he  has  himself  to  conduct.  He  never 
tastes  the  luxuries  which  are  so  common  in  the 
middle  ranks  of  life,  and  even  amongst  a  large 
portion  of  the  working-classes.  He  has  to  mend 
with  his  own  hands  every  sort  of  thing  that  can 
break  or  wear  in  his  house.  Yet  Mr.  Peach  is 
a  votary  of  Natural  History ;  not  a  student  of 
the  science  in  books,  for  he  cannot  afford  books ; 
but  an  investigator  by  sea  and  shore,  a  collector  of 
zoophytes  and  echinodermata,  strange  creatures, 
many  of  which  are  as  yet  hardly  known  to  man. 
These  he  collects,  preserves,  and  describes  ;  and 
every  year  does  he  come  up  to  the  British  Asso- 


THE    ■\V0NDER3    OF   THE    SUOllE.  81 

elation  with  a  few  novelties  of  this  kind,  accom- 
panied by  illustrative  papers  and  drawings :  thus, 
under  circumstances  the  very  opposite  of  those 
of  such   men   as   Lord   Enniskillen,   adding,   in 
like  manner,  to  the  general  stock  of  knowledge. 
On  the  present  occasion  he  is  unusually  elated, 
for  he  has  made  the  discovery  of  a  llolothuria 
with  twenty  tentacula,  a  species  of  the  echino- 
dcrniata  which  Professor  Forbes,  in  his  book  on 
Star-Fishes,  has  said  was  never  yet  oteerved  in 
the  British  seas.     It  may  be  of  small  moment  to 
you,  who,  mayhap,  know  nothing  of  Ilolothurias : 
but  it  is  a  considerable  thing  to  the  Fauna  of 
Britain,  and  a  vast  matter  to  a  poor  private  of 
the  Cornwall  mounted  guard.     And  accordingly 
he  will  go  home  in  a  few  days,  full  of  the  glory 
of  his  exhibition,  and  strung  anew  by  the  kind 
notice  taken  of  him  by  tlic  masters  of  the  science 
to   similar   inquiries,  dillicult   as    it   may   be    to 
prosecute   them   under   such   a   complication    of 
duties,  professional  and  domestic.     But   lie    li;is 
still  another  subject   of  congratulation,    for    Dr. 
Carpenter  lias  kindly  given   biin   a  microscope, 
wlicrcwith     to    observe     the     structure    of    his 
favorite   animals,    an    instrument   for   which    he 
has   sighed    for   many   years   in    vain.      Honest 
6 


82  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

Peacli !  humble  as  is  thy  home,  and  simple  thy 
bearing,  thou  art  an  honor  even  to  this  assem- 
blage of  nobles  and  doctors:  nay,  more,  when 
we  consider  everything,  thou  art  an  honor  to 
human  nature  itself;  for  where  is  the  heroism 
like  that  of  virtuous,  intelligent,  independent 
poverty  ?  And  such  heroism  is  thine!" — Cham- 
bers's Edinh.  Journ.,  Nov.  23,  1844. 

INIr.  Peach  is  now,  we  are  glad  to  say,  reward- 
ed in  part  for  his  long  labors  in  the  cause  of 
science,  by  having  been  removed  to  a  more 
lucrative  post  on  the  north  coast  of  England ; 
the  earnest,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  of  still  further 
promotion. 

But  here  we  are  at  the  old  bank  of  boulders, 
the  ruins  of  an  antique  pier  which  the  monks  of 
Tor  Abbey  built  for  their  convenience,  while 
Torquay  was  but  a  knot  of  fishing  huts  within 
a  lonely  limestone  cove.  To  get  to  it,  though, 
we  have  passed  many  a  hidden  treasure ;  for 
every  ledge  of  these  flat  New-red-sandstone- 
rocks,  if  torn  up  with  the  crowbar,  discloses  in 
its  cracks  and  crannies  nests  of  strange  forms 
which  shun  the  light  of  day ;  beautiful  Actinia; 
fill  the  tiny  caverns  Avith  living  flowers ;  great 
Pholades  bore  by  hundreds  in  the  softer  strata ; 


THE   W0XDER3    OF   THE    SHORE.  83 

and  wherever  a  tbin  layer  of  muddy  sand  inter- 
venes between  two  slabs,  long  Annelid  worms 
of  quaintest  forms  and  colors  have  their  hori- 
zontal burrows,  among  those  of  that  curious  and 
rare  radiate  animal,  the  Spoonworm,*  an  eyeless 
bag  about  an  inch  long,  half  bluish-gray,  half 
pink,  with  a  strange  scalloped  and  wrinkled  pro- 
boscis of  saffron  color,  which  serves,  in  some 
mysterious  way,  soft  as  it  is,  to  collect  food,  and 
clear  its  dark  passage  through  the  rock. 

See,  at  the  extreme  low-water  mark,  where 
the  broad  olive  fronds  of  the  Laminarioa,  like 
fan-palms,  droop  and  wave  gracefully  in  the 
retiring  ripples,  a  great  boulder  which  will  serve 
our  purpose.  Its  upper  side  is  a  whole  forest  of 
sea-weeds,  large  and  small ;  and  that  forest,  if 
you  examined  it  closely,  as  full  of  inhabitants 
as  those  of  the  Amazon  or  the  Gambia.  To 
"beat"  that  dense  cover  would  be  aii  endless 
task  ;  but  on  the  under  side,  wliere  no  sea-weeds 
grow,  wc  shall  find  full  in  view  enough  to  occupy 
us  till  the  tide  returns.  For  the  slab,  sec,  is 
such  a  one  as  sea-beasts  love  to  haunt.  Its 
weed-covered  surface  shows  that  the  surge  has 

♦  Thalassema  Nepluni     (Forbcs's     British      Star-Fislies, 
p.  259). 


84  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

not  shifted  it  for  years  past.  It  lies  on  other 
boulders  clear  of  sand  and  mud,  so  that  there  is 
no  fear  of  dead  sea-weed  having  lodged  and  de- 
cayed under  it,  destructive  to  animal  life.  "We 
can  see  dark  crannies  and  caves  beneath ;  yet 
too  narrow  to  allow  the  surge  to  wash  in,  and 
keep  the  surface  clean.  It  will  be  a  fine  mena- 
gerie of  Nereus,  if  we  can  but  turn  it. 

Now,  the  crowbar  is  well  under  it ;  heave,  and 
with  a  will ;  and  so,  after  five  minutes'  tugging, 
propping,  slipping,  and  splashing,  the  boulder 
gradually  tips  over,  and  we  rush  gi'cedily  upon 
the  spoil. 

A  muddy  dripping  surface  it  is,  truly,  full  of 
cracks  and  hollows,  uninviting  enough  at  first 
sight:  let  us  look  it  round  leisurely,  to  see  if 
there  are  not  materials  enough  there  for  an  hour's 
lecture. 

The  first  object  which  strikes  the  eye  is  prob- 
ably a  group  of  milk-white  slugs,  from  two  to 
six  inches  long,  cuddling  snugly  together.  You 
try  to  pull  them  off,  and  find  that  they  give  you 
some  trouble,  such  a  firm  hold  have  the  delicate 
white  sucking  arms,  which  fringe  each  of  their 
five  edges.  You  see  at  the  head  nothing  but  a 
yellow   dimple  ;    for   eating  and  breathing    are 


THE    -SVONDERS    OP   THE    SHORE.  85 

suspended  till  the  return  of  tide :  but  once  set- 
tled in  a  jar  of  salt  water,  each  will  protrude  a 
large  chocolate-colored  head,  tipped  with  a  ring 
of  ten  feathery  gills,  looking  very  much  like  a 
head  of  "  curled  kale,"  but  of  the  loveliest  white 
and  primrose ;  in  the  centre  whereof  lies  perdu 
a  mouth  with  sturdy  teeth, — if  indeed  they,  as 
well  as  the  whole  inside  of  the  worthy  fellow, 
Iiave  not  been  lately  got  rid  of,  and  what  you  see 
be  not  a  mere  bag,  without  intestine  or   other 
organ  :  but  only  for  the  time  being.     For  hear 
it,  worn-out  epicures,  and  old  Indians  who  be- 
moan your  livers,  this  little  Ilolothuria  knows  a 
secret  which,  if  he  could  tell  it,  you  would  be 
glad  to  buy  of  him  for  thousands  sterling.     To 
him  blue-pill  and  muriatic  acid  are  superfluous, 
and  travels  to  German  Brunnen  a  waste  of  time. 
Happy   Ilolothuria!   who   possesses   really   that 
secret  of  everlasting  youth,  which  ancient  fable 
bestowed   on   tlic   serpent  and   the  eagle.     For 
when    liis   teeth   ache,   or   his   digestive    organs 
trouble   him,  all  he  has  to  do  is  just  to  cast  up 
forthwith  his  entire  inside,  and  fuisunt  mniyre  for 
a  month  or  so,  grow   a  fresh  set,  and  (hen  eat 
away  as  merrily  as  ever.     Ilis  name,  if  you  wish 
to  consult  so  triumphant  a  liygeist,  is  Cncnmaria 


86  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

Hyndmanni,  named  after  Mr.  Hyndmann  of  Bel- 
fast, his  first  discoverer :  but  he  has  many  a  stout 
cousin  round  the  Scotch  coast,  who  knows  the 
antibilious  panacea  as  well  as  he,  and  submits, 
among  the  Northern  fishermen,  to  the  rather  rude 
and  undeserved  name  of  sea-puddings ;  one  of 
which  grows  in  Shetland  to  the  enormous  length 
of  three  feet,  rivalling  there  his  huge  congeners, 
who  display  their  exquisite  plumes  oji  every 
tropic  coral  reef. 

Next,  what  are  those  bright  little  buds,  like 
salmon-colored  Banksia  roses  half  expanded, 
sitting  closely  on  the  stone  ?  Touch  them ;  the 
soft  part  is  retracted,  and  the  orange  flower  of 
flesh  is  transformed  into  a  pale  pink  flower  of 
stone.  That  is  the  Madrepore,  Caryophyllia 
Smithii,  one  of  our  south  coast  rarities ;  and  see, 
on  the  lip  of  the  last  one,  which  we  have  care- 
fully scooped  ofi*  with  the  chisel,  two  little  pink 
towers  of  stone,  delicately  striated ;  drop  them 
into  this  small  bottle  of  sea-water,  and  from  the 
top  of  each  tower  issues  every  half  second — what 
shall  we  call  it? — a  hand  or  a  net  of  finest  hairs, 
clutching  at  something  invisible  to  our  grosser 
sense.  That  is  the  Pyrgoma,  parasitic  only  (as 
far  as  we  know)  on  the  lip  of  this  same  rare 


THE   "WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  87 

Madrepore ;  a  little   '•  cirrliipod,"  the   cousin   of 
those  tiny  barnacles  which  roughen  every  rock, 
and  of  those  larger  ones  also  "who  burrow  in  the 
thick  hide  of  the  whale,  and,  borne  about  upon 
his   mighty  sides,  throw  out  their  tiny  casting- 
nets,  as  this  Pyrgoma  does,  to  catch  every  passing 
animalcule,  and  sweep  them  into  the  jaws  con- 
cealed within  its  shell.     And  this  creature,  rooted 
to  one  spot  through  life  and  death,  was  in  its 
infancy  a  free  swimming  animal,  hovering  from 
place  to  place  upon   delicate  cilia^,  till,  having 
sown  its  wild  oats,  it  settled  down  in  life,  built 
itself  a  good  stone  house,  and  became  a  land- 
owner, or  rather  a  ghhce  adscnptiis,  for  ever  and 
a  day.     IMysterious  destiny  !  —  yet  not  so  myste- 
rious as  that  of  the  free  medusoid  young  of  every 
polype  and  coral,  whicli  ends  as  a  rooted  tree  of 
horn  or  stone,  and  seems  to  the  eye  of  sensuous 
fanry  to  have  literally  degenerated  into  a  vcgc- 
taltlo.     Of  them  you  must  read  for  yourselves  in 
Mr.  Gossc's  book  ;  in  the   mean  wliilc  he  shall 
tell  you  something  of  the  beautiful  IMadreporcs 
themselves.     His   description,*  by   far   the   best 
yet  published,  sliould  be  road  in   full :  wc  must 
content  ourselves  with  extracts. 

•  A  Xatumlist's  Rambles  on  the  Dcvonsliiro  Const,  p.  110. 


88  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

"  Doubtless  you  are  familiar  witli  the  stony 
skeleton  of  our  Madrepore,  as  it  appears  in 
museums.  It  consists  of  a  number  of  thin 
calcareous  plates  standing  up  edgewise,  and  ar- 
ranged in  a  radiating  manner  round  a  low  cen- 
tre. A  little  below  tlie  margin,  their  individu- 
ality is  lost  in  the  deposition  of  rough  calcareous 
matter.  .  .  .  The  general  form  is  more  or  less 
cylindrical,  commonly  wider  at  the  top  than  just 
above  the  bottom.  .  .  .  This  is  but  the  skeleton  ; 
and  though  it  is  a  very  pretty  object,  those  who 
are  acquainted  with  it  alone  can  form  but  a 
very  poor  idea  of  the  beauty  of  the  living  ani- 
mal. .  .  .  Let  it,  after  being  torn  from  the  rock, 
recover  its  equanimity  ;  then  you  will  see  a 
pellucid  gelatinous  flesh  emerging  from  between 
the  plates,  and  little  exquisitely  formed  and 
colored  tentacula,  with  white  clubbed  tips  frin- 
ging the  sides  of  the  cup-shaped  cavity  in  the 
centre,  across  which  stretches  the  oval  disc 
marked  with  a  star  of  some  rich  and  brilliant 
color,  surrounding  the  central  mouth,  a  slit  with 
white  crenated  lips,  like  the  orifice  of  one  of 
those  elegant  cowry-shells  which  we  put  upon 
our  mantelpieces.  The  mouth  is  always  more 
or  less   prominent,  and   can   be   protruded   and 


THE    "WOXDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  89 

expanded  to  an  astonishing  extent.  The  space 
surrounding  the  lips  is  commonly  fawn-color,  or 
rich  chestnut-hrown  ;  the  star  or  vandyked  circle 
rich  red,  pale  vermilion,  and  sometimes  the  most 
brilliant  emerald  green,  as  brilliant  as  the  gorget 
of  a  humming-bird." 

And  what  does  this  exquisitely  delicate  crea- 
ture do  with  its  pretty  mouth  ?  Alas  for  fact ! 
It  sips  no  honey-dew,  or  fruits  from  paradise. 

"  I  put  a  minute  spider,  as  large  as  a  pin's 
head,  into  the  water,  pushing  it  down  to  the 
coral.  The  instant  it  touched  the  tip  of  a  ten- 
tacle, it  adhered,  and  was  drawn  in  with  the 
surrounding  tentacles  between  the  plates.  With 
a  lens  I  saw  the  small  mouth  slowly  open,  and 
move  over  to  that  side,  the  hps  gaping  unsym- 
mctrically,  while  with  a  movement  as  imper- 
ceptible as  that  of  the  hour-hand  of  a  watch, 
tlie  tiny  prey  was  carried  along  between  the 
plates  to  the  corner  of  the  mouth.  The  mouth, 
however,  moved  most,  and  at  h.-ngth  reached  the 
edges  of  the  plates,  gradually  closed  upon  the 
insect,  and  then  returned  (o  its  usual  place  in 
the  centre." 

Mr.  Gesso  next  tried  tlie  fairy  of  the  walking 
mouth  witli   a    house-fly,  who    escaped   only  by 


90  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

hard  fighting;  and  at  last  the  gentle  creature, 
after  swallowing  and  disgorging  various  large 
pieces  of  shell-fish,  found  viands  to  its  taste  in 
"  the  lean  of  cooked  meat,  and  portions  of  earth- 
worms," filling  up  the  intervals  by  a  perpetual 
dessert  of  microscopic  animalcules,  whirled  into 
that  lovely  avernus,  its  mouth,  by  the  currents 
of  the  delicate  cilia3  which  clothe  every  tentacle. 
The  fact  is,  that  the  Madrepore,  like  those  glo- 
rious sea-anemones  whose  living  flowers  stud 
every  pool,  is  by  profession  a  scavenger,  and  a 
feeder  on  carrion ;  and,  being  as  useful  as  he  is 
beautiful,  really  comes  under  the  rule  which  he 
seems  at  first  to  break,  that  handsome  is  who 
handsome  does. 

Another  species  of  Madrepore*  was  discovered 
on  our  Devon  coast  by  Mr.  Gosse,  more  gaudy, 
though  not  so  delicate  in  hue  as  our  Caryo- 
phyllia  ;  three  of  which  are  at  this  moment  pout- 
ing out  their  conical  orange  mouths  and  pointed 
golden  tentacles  in  a  vase  on  my  table,  at  once 
grumbling  and  entreating  for  something  to  eat. 
Mr.  Gosse's  locality,  for  this  and  numberless 
other  curiosities,  is  Ilfracombe,  on  the  north 
coast  of  Devon.  These  last  specimens  came  from 
*  Balanophyllia  regia,  Coast  of  Devon,  p.  399. 


THE    WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  91 

Lundy  Island,  in  the  mouth  of  the  Bristol  Chan- 
nel, or  more  properly  from  that  curious  "  Eat 
Island"  to  the  south  of  it,  where  still  lingers 
the  black  long-tailed  English  rat,  exterminated 
everywhere  else  by  his  sturdier  brown  cousin  of 
the  Hanoverian  dynasty. 

Look,  now,  at  these  tiny  saucers  of  the  thin- 
nest ivory,  the  largest  not  bigger  than  a  silver 
threepence,  which  contain  in  their  centres  a  milk- 
white  crust  of  stone,  pierced,  as  you  see  under 
the  magnifier,  into  a  thousand  cells,  each  with  its 
living  architect  within.  Here  are  two  sorts ;  in 
one  the  tubular  cells  radiate  from  the  centre, 
giving  it  the  appearance  of  a  tiny  compound 
flower,  daisy  or  groundsel ;  in  the  other  they  arc 
crossed  with  waving  grooves,  giving  the  whole 
a  peculiar  fretted  look,  even  more  l)cautiful  than 
that  of  the  former  species.  They  are  TuhuUpora 
patina  and  Tufjulipora  Itlspida;  —  and  stay, — 
break  off  that  tiny  rough  red  wart,  and  look  at 
its  cells  also  under  tlie  magnifier :  it  is  Ccllcpura 
pnmicosa ;  and  now,  with  the  IMadrepore  you 
hold  in  your  hand,  tlie  principal,  at  le.'ust  the 
commonest,  IJriti.-ih  types  of  those  famed  coral 
insecU*,  whicli  in  tlie  tropics  are  the  architects  of 
continents,   and    the    conciucrors    of    the    ocean 


92  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

surge.  All  the  world,  since  the  publication  of 
Darwin's  delightful  "  Voyage  of  the  Beagle,"  and 
of  Williams's  "  Missionary  Enterprises,"  knows, 
or  ought  to  know,  enough  about  them :  for  those 
who  do  not,  there  are  a  few  pages  in  the  begin- 
ning of  Dr.  Landsborough's  "  British  Zoophytes," 
well  worth  perusal. 

There  are  a  few  other  true  cellepore  corals 
round  the  coast.  The  largest  of  all,  Cervicornis, 
may  be  dredged  a  few  miles  outside  on  the  Ex- 
mouth  bank,  with  a  few  more  Tubulipores ;  but 
all  tiny  things,  the  lingering,  and,  as  it  were, 
expiring  remnants  of  that  great  coral-world, 
which,  through  the  abysmal  depths  of  past 
ages,  formed  here  in  Britain  our  limestone  hills, 
storing  up  for  generations  yet  unborn  the  ma- 
terials of  agriculture  and  architecture.  Inex- 
pressibly interesting,  even  solemn,  to  those  who 
will  think,  is  the  sight  of  these  puny  parasites, 
which,  as  it  were,  connect  the  ages  and  the 
zones  :  yet  not  so  solemn  and  full  of  meaning  as 
that  tiny  relic  of  an  older  world,  the  little  pear- 
shaped  Turbinolia,  (cousin  of  the  Madrepores 
and  Sea-anemones,)  found  fossil  in  the  Suffolk 
Crag,  and  yet  still  lingering  here  and  there  alive 
in  the  deep  water  off  Scilly  and  the  west  coast 


THE  AVOXDKRS  OF  THE  SHORE.      93 

of  Ireland,  possessor  of  a  pedigree  which  dates, 
perhaps,  from  ages  before  the  day  in  which  it 
was  said,  "  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image,  after 
our  likeness."  To  think  that  the  whole  human 
race,  its  joys  and  its  sorrows,  its  virtues  and  its 
sins,  its  aspirations  and  its  failures,  has  been 
rushing  out  of- eternity  and  into  eternity  again, 
as  Arjoon  in  the  Bhagavad  Gita  beheld  the  race 
of  men,  issuing  from  Kreeshna's  flaming  mouth, 
and  swallowed  up  in  it  again,  "  as  the  crowds  of 
insects  swarm  into  the  flame,  as  the  homeless 
streams  leap  down  into  the  ocean  bed,"  in  an 
everlasting  heart-pulse  whose  blood  is  living 
souls.  And  all  that  while,  and  ages  before  that 
mystery  began,  that  humble  coral,  unnoticed  on 
the  dark  sea-floor,  has  been  "continuing  as  it 
was  at  the  beginning,"  and  fulfilling  "  the  law 
which  cannot  be  broken,"  while  races  and  dynas- 
ties and  generations  have  been 

"  Playing  such  fantastic  tricks  before  high  Heaven, 
As  make  the  angels  weep." 

Yes  ;  it  is  this  vision  of  the  awful  permanence 
and  perfection  of  the  natural  world,  beside  the 
wild  flux  and  confusion,  the  mad  struggles,  the 
despairing  cries,  of  that  world  of  spirits   which 


94  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

man  has  defiled  by  sin,  which  would  at  moments 
crush  the  naturalist's  heart,  and  make  his  brain 
swim  with  terror,  were  it  not  that  he  can  see  by 
faith,  through  all  the  abysses  and  the  ages,  not 
merely 

"  Jlancls, 
From  out  the  darkness,  shaping  man  "  ; 

but  'above  them  a  living,  loving  countenance, 
human  and  yet  divine ;  and  can  hear  a  voice 
which  said  at  first,  "  Let  us  make  man  in  our 
image  "  ;  and  hath  said  since  then,  and  says  £ot 
ever  and  for  ever,  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  always, 
even  to  the  end  of  the  world." 

But  now,  friend,  who  listenest,  perhaps  in- 
structed, and  at  least  amused,  if,  as  Professor 
Harvey  well  says,  the  simpler  animals  represent, 
as  in  a  glass,  the  scattered  organs  of  the  higher 
races,  which  of  your  organs  is  represented  by 
that  "  sca'd  man's  head,"  which  the  Devon  chil- 
dren more  gracefully,  yet  with  less  adherence  to 
plain  likeness,  call  "  mermaid's  head,"  *  which 
we  picked  up  just  now  on  Paignton  Sands  ?  Or 
which,  again,  by  its  more  beautiful  little  con- 
gencr,t  five  or  six  of  which  are  adhering  tightly 
to  the  slab  before  us,  a  ball  covered  with  delicate 
*  Ampliidoius  cordatus.  t  Echinus  miliaris. 


THE   "SYOXDERS    OF   THE    SHOUE.  95 

spines  of  lilac  and  green,  and  stuck  over  (cunning 
fellows !)  with  strips  of  dead  sea-weed  to  serve  as 
improvised  parasols  ?  One  cannot  say  (though 
Oken  and  the  Okenists  might)  that  in  him  we 
have  the  first  type  of  the  human  skull ;  for  the 
resemblance,  quaint  as  it  is,  is  only  sensuous  and 
accidental,  (in  the  logical  use  of  that  term,)  and 
not  homological,  /.  c.  a  lower  manifestation  of  the 
same  idea.  Yet  how  is  one  tempted  to  say,  that 
this  was  Nature's  first  and  lowest  attempt  at 
that  use  of  hollow  globes  of  mineral  for  pro- 
tecting soft  fleshy  parts,  which  she  afterwards 
developed  to  such  perfection  in  the  skulls  of 
vertebrate  animals.  But  even  that  conceit, 
pretty  as  it  sounds,  will  not  hold  good  ;  for 
thouprli  Radiates  similar  to  these  were  amoner 
the  earliest  tenants  of  the  abyss,  yet  as  early  as 
their  time,  perhaps  even  before  them,  had  been 
conceived  and  actualized,  in  the  sharks,  and  in 
Mr.  Hugh  Miller's  pels,  the  old  red  sandstone 
fishes,  that  very  true  vertebrate  skull  and  brain, 
of  which  this  is  a  mere  mockery.*  Here  the 
whole  animal,  with  liis  extraordinary  fccding-mill, 
(for  neither  teeth  nor  jaws  is  a  fit  word  for  it,)  is 

*  See  Professor  Sedgwick's  liist  edition  of  tlic  Uiscourscs 
on  the  Studies  of  Cambridge. 


96  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

inclosed  within  an  ever-growing  limestone  castle, 
to  the  architecture  of  which  the  Eddystone  and 
the  Crystal  Palace  are  bungUng  heaps ;  without 
arms  or  legs,  eyes  or  ears,  and  yet  capable,  in  spite 
of  his  perpetual  imprisonment,  of  walking,  feed- 
ing, and  breeding,  doubt  it  not,  merrily  enough. 
But  this  result  has  been  attained  at  the  expense 
of  a  complication  of  structure,  which  has  baffled 
all  human  analysis  and  research  into  final  causes. 
As  much  concerning  this  most  miraculous  of 
families  as  is  needful  to  be  known,  and  ten  times 
more  than  is  comprehended,  may  be  read  in 
Professor  Harvey's  Sea-Side  Book,  pp.  142-148, 
— pages  from  which  you  will  probably  arise  with 
a  dizzy  sense  of  the  infinity  of  nature,  and  a  con- 
viction that  The  Creative  Word,  so  far  fi'om  hav- 
ing commenced,  as  some  fancy,  with  the  simplest, 
and,  as  it  were,  easiest  forms  of  life,  took  delight, 
as  it  were,  in  solving  the  most  difficult  and  com- 
plicated problems  first  of  all,  with  a  certain 
divine  prodigality  of  wisdom  and  of  power ;  and 
that  before  the  mountains  were  brought  forth,  or 
ever  the  earth  and  the  world  was  made,  He  was 
God  from  everlasting,  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  for  ever.  Conceive  a  Crystal  Palace,  (for 
mere  difference   in  size,  as  both  the  naturalist 


THE  "WONDERS  OF  THE  SHORE.      97 

and  the  metaphysician  know,  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  wonder,)  whereof  each  separate  joist, 
girder,  and  pane  grows  continually  without  alter- 
ing the  shape  of  the  whole ;  and  you  have  con- 
ceived only  one  of  the  miracles  embodied  in  that 
little  sea-egg,  which  The  Divine  Word  has,  as  it 
were  to  justify  to  man  His  own  immutability, 
furnished  witli  a  shell  capable  of  enduring  fossil 
for  countless  ages,  that  we  may  confess  Him  to 
have  been  as  great  wlien  first  His  spirit  brooded 
on  the  deep,  as  He  is  now,  and  will  be  through 
all  worlds  to  come. 

But  we  must  make  haste  ;  for  the  tide  is  rising 
fast,  and  our  stone  will  be  restored  to  its  eleven 
hours'  bath,  long  before  wc  have  talked  over  half 
the  wonders  which  it  holds.  Look  though,  ere 
you  retreat,  at  one  or  two  more. 

"What  is  that  little  brown  fellow  whom  you 
have  just  taken  off  the  rock  to  wliich  he  adhered 
so  stoutly  by  his  sucking-foot  ?  A  limpet  ?  Not 
at  all :  he  is  of  quite  a  difierent  family  and 
filructuro  ;  Ijut,  on  the  whole,  a  limpet-like  shell 
would  suit  him  well  cnougli,  so  he  Iiad  (inc  given 
him  :  nevertheless,  owing  to  certain  anatomical 
peculiarities,  he  needed  one  aperture  more  than 
a  limpet ;  so  one,  if  you  will  examine,  has  been 
7 


98  GLAUCUS  ;    Oil, 

given  hiin  at  the  top  of  his  shell.*  This  is  one 
instance  among  a  thousand  of  the  way  in  which 
a  scientific  knowledge  of  objects  must  not  obey, 
but  run  counter  to,  the  impressions  of  sense ; 
and  of  a  custom  in  nature  which  makes  this 
caution  so  necessary,  namely,  the  repetition  of 
the  same  form,  slightly  modified,  in  totally  differ- 
ent animals,  sometimes  as  if  to  avoid  waste,  (for 
why  should  not  the  same  conception  be  used  in 
two  different  cases,  if  it  will  suit  in  both  ?)  and 
sometimes,  (more  marvellous  by  far,)  when  an 
organ  fully  developed  and  useful  in  one  species, 
appears  in  a  cognate  species,  but  feeble,  useless, 
and,  as  it  were,  abortive  ;  and  gradually,  in  species 
still  farther  removed,  dies  out  altogether ;  placed 
there,  it  would  seem,  at  first  sight,  merely  to 
keep  up  the  family  likeness.  I  am  half  jesting ; 
that  cannot  be  the  only  reason,  perhaps  not  the 
reason  at  all;  but  the  fact  is  one  of  the  most 
curious,  and  notorious  also,  in  comparative  anat- 
omy. 

Look,  again,  at  those  sea-slugs.  One,  some 
three  inches  long,  of  a  bright  lemon-yellow, 
clouded  with  purple ;  another  of  a  dingy  gray ;  t 

*  Flssurdla  f/rceca. 

t  Doris  iubcrculata  and  hilineata. 


TUE  ■WOXDKKS  OF  THE  SHORE.      99 

another    (exquisite   little   creature)    of  a   pearly 
French  white,*  furred  all  over  the   back  with 
what  seem  arms,  but  are  really  gills,  of  ringed 
white  and  gray  and  black.     Put  that  yellow  one 
into  water,  and  from  his  head,  above  the  eyes, 
arise  two  serrated  horns,  while  from  the  after 
part   of  his   back  springs   a   circular  Prince-of- 
"VTales's  leather  of  gills,  —  they  are  almost  exact- 
ly like  those  which  we  saw  just  now  in  the  wliite 
Cucumaria.     Yes ;  here   is  another  instance  of 
that  same  custom  of  repetition.     The  Cucumaria 
is  a  low  radiate  animal,  the  sea-slug  a  far  higher 
raoUusk ;  and  every  organ  within  him  is  formed 
on  a  different  type  ;  as  indeed  are  those  seeming- 
ly identical  gills,  if  you  comp  to  examine  them 
under  the  microscope,  having  to  oxygenate  fluids 
of  a  very  different  and  more  complicated  kind ; 
and,  moreover,  the  Cucumorid's  gills  were   put 
round  his  mouth  ;  the  Doris's  feathers  round  the 
other   extremity ;  that   gray  Eolis's,   again,   are 
simple  clubs,  scattered  over  his  whole  back,  and 
in  each  of  his  nudibranch  congeners  these  same 
gills  take  some  new  luid  fantastic  form ;  in  Me- 
libtra  tliosc  clubs  arc   covered  with   warts  ;   in 
Sryllaa,  Avith  tufted  bouquets  ;  in   the  beautiful 

•  /Jb/»*  jHijnUosa. 


100  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

Antiopa*  tlicy  are  transparent  bags;  and  in 
many  other  English  species  they  take  every  con- 
ceivable form  of  leaf,  tree,  flower,  and  branch, 
bedecked  with  every  color  of  the  rainbow,  as 
you  may  see  them  depicted  in  Messrs.  Alder 
and  Hancock's  unrivalled  Monograph  on  the 
Nudibranch  MoUusca. 

And  now,  worshipper  of  final  causes  and  the 
mere  useful  in  Nature,  answer  but  one  ques- 
tion,—  Why  this  prodigal  variety?  All  these 
Nudibranchs  live  in  much  the  same  way:  why 
would  not  the  same  mould  have  done  for  them 
all  ?  And  why,  again,  (for  we  must  push  the 
argument  a  little  further,)  why  have  not  all  the 
butterflies,  at  least  all  v/ho  feed  on  the  same 
plant,  the  same  markings  ?  Of  all  unfathomable 
triumphs  of  design,  (we  can  only  express  our- 
selves thus,  for  honest  induction,  as  Paley  so  well 
teaches,  allows  us  to  ascribe  such  results  only  to 
the  design  of  some  personal  will  and  mind,)  what 
surpasses  that  by  which  the  scales  on  a  butterfly's 
wing  are  arranged  to  produce  a  certain  pattern 
of  artistic  beauty  beyond  all  painter's  skill  ? 
What  a  waste  of  power,  on  any  utilitarian  theory 
of  nature  !  And  once  more  ;  why  are  those 
*  Gossc's  "Naturalist  in  Devon/'  p.  325. 


THE    WOXDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  101 

strange  microscopic  atomies,  the  Diaiomacece  and 
Infusoria,  v/liicli  fill  every  stagnant  pool,  -nhich 
fringe  ever)-  branch  of  sea-weed,  which  form 
banks  hundreds  of  miles  long  on  the  Arctic  sea- 
floor,  and  the  strata  of  whole  moorlands,  which 
perv-ade  in  millions  the  mass  of  every  iceberg,  and 
float  aloft  in  countless  swarms  amid  the  clouds  of 
the  volciinic  dust, — why  are  their  tiny  shells  of 
flint  as  fantastically  various  in  their  quaint  mathe- 
matical symmetry,  as  they  are  countless  beyond 
the  wildest  dreams  of  the  Pantheist  ?  Mystery 
inexplicable  on  all  theories  of  evolution  by  neces- 
sary laws,  as  well  as  on  the  conceited  notion 
which,  making  man  forsooth  the  centre  of  the 
universe,  dares  to  believe  that  variety  of  forms 
has  existed  for  countless  ages  in  abysmal  sea- 
depths  and  untrodden  forests,  only  that  some 
few  individuals  of  the  western  races  might,  in 
these  Litter  days,  at  last  discover  and  admire  a 
comer  here  and  there  of  the  boundless  realms  of 
beauty.  Inexjdieable,  truly,  if  man  be  the  cen- 
tre and  the  object  of  their  existence  ;  exi)licable 
cnougli  to  liim  who  believes  that  God  has  created 
all  tilings  for  Himself,  and  rejoices  in  His  own 
haiifliwork,  and  that  the  material  universe  is,  as 
the  wise  man  says,  "  A  platform  whereon  Ilis 


102  GL.VUCUS  ;    OR, 

eternal  Spirit  sports  and  makes  melody."  Of  all 
the  blessings  which  the  study  of  nature  brings 
to  the  patient  observer,  let  none,  perhaps,  be 
classed  higher  than  this ;  —  that  the  further  he 
enters  into  those  fairy  gardens  of  life  and  birth, 
which  Spenser  saw  and  described  in  bis  great 
poem,  the  more  he  learns  the  awful  and  yet  most 
comfortable  truth,  that  they  do  not  belong  to  him, 
but  to  one  greater,  wiser,  lovelier  than  he ;  and 
as  he  stands,  silent  with  awe,  amid  the  pomj)  of 
nature's  ever-busy  rest,  hears,  as  of  old,  "  The 
Word  of  the  Lord  God  walking  among  the  trees 
of  the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day." 

One  sight  more,  and  we  have  done.  We  had 
something  to  say,  had  time  permitted,  on  the  lu- 
dicrous element  which  appears  here  and  there  in 
nature.  There  are  animals,  like  monkeys  and 
crabs,  which  seem  made  to  be  laughed  at ;  by 
those  at  least  who  possess  that  most  indefinable 
of  faculties,  the  sense  of  the  ridiculous.  As 
long  as  man  possesses  muscles  especially  formed 
to  enable  him  to  laugh,  we  have  no  right  to  sup- 
pose (with  some)  that  laughter  is  an  accident  of 
our  fallen  nature ;  or  to  find  (with  others)  the 
primary  cause  of  the  ridiculous  in  the  perception 
of  unfitness  or  disharmony.     And  yet  we  shrink 


THE    WONDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  103 

(whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  we  can  hardly  tell) 
from  attributincT  a  sense  of  the  ludicrous  to  the 
Creator  of  these  forms.  It  may  be  a  weakness 
on  our  part ;  at  least  we  will  hope  it  is  a  reverent 
one  ^  but  till  we  can  find  something  corresponding 
to  what  we  conceive  of  the  Divine  Mind  in  any 
class  of  phenomena,  it  is  perhaps  better  not 
to  talk  aljout  them  at  all,  but  observe  a  stoic 
"  epoche,"  waiting  for  more  light,  and  yet  confess- 
ing that  our  own  laughter  is  uncontrollable,  and 
therefore  we  hope  not  unworthy  of  us,  at  many  a 
strange  creature  and  strange  doing  which  we 
meet,  from  the  highest  ape  to  the  lowest  polype. 

But,  in  the  mean  while,  there  are  animals  in 
which  results  so  strange,  fantastic,  even  seemingly 
horrible,  arc  produced,  that  fallen  man  may  be 
jiardoncd,  if  he  shrinks  from  them  in  disgust. 
That,  at  least,  must  be  a  consequence  of  our  own 
wrong  fitatc;  for  everything  is  beautiful  and 
perfect  in  its  place.  It  may  be  answered,  "  Yes, 
in  its  place ;  but  its  place  is  not  yours.  You 
had  no  business  to  look  at  it,  and  must  pay 
the  penalty  for  intermfdilling."  I  doubt  that 
nn.Mwer  ;  for  surely,  if  m:ui  have  liberty  to  do 
anything,  he  Jian  liberty  to  Bonrch  out  freely  his 
Heavenly  Fatlier's    works;  and    yet   every  one 


104  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

seems  to  have  his  antipathic  animal ;  and  I  know 
one  bred  from  his  childhood  to  zoology  by  land 
and  sea,  and  bold  in  asserting,  and  honest  in 
feeling,  that  all  without  exception  is  beautiful, 
who  yet  cannot,  after  handling  and  petting 
and  admiring  all  day  long  every  uncouth  and 
venomous  beast,  avoid  a  paroxysm  of  horror  at 
the  sight  of  the  common  house-spider.  At  all 
events,  whether  we  were  intruding  or  not,  in 
turning  this  stone,  we  must  pay  a  fine  for  having 
done  so;  for  there  lies  an  animal  as  foul  and 
monstrous  to  the  eye  as  "  hydra,  gorgon,  or 
chimtcra  dire,"  and  yet  so  wondrously  fitted  to 
its  work,  that  we  must  needs  endure  for  our  own 
instruction  to  handle  and  to  look  at  it.  Its 
name  I  know  not,  (though  it  lurks  here  under 
every  stone,)  and  should  be  glad  to  know.  It 
seems  some  very  "  low "  Ascarid  or  Planarian 
worm.  You  see  it  ?  That  black,  shiny,  knotted 
lump  among  the  gravel,  small  enough  to  be  taken 
up  in  a  dessert-spoon.  Look  now,  as  it  is  raised 
and  its  coils  drawn  out.  Three  feet — six — nine, 
at  least :  with  a  capability  of  seemingly  endless 
expansion  ;  a  slimy  tape  of  living  caoutchouc, 
some  eighth  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  a  dark 
chocolate-black,    with    paler    longitudinal    lines. 


TUE   WONDERS    OF   THE   SHORE.  105 

Is  it  alive  ?  It  hangs  helpless  and  motionless,  a 
mere  velvet  string  across  the  hand.  Ask  the 
neighboring  Annelids  and  the  fry  of  the  rock 
fishes,  or  put  it  into  a  vase  at  home,  and  see. 
It  lies  motionless,  trailing  itself  among  the 
gravel ;  you  cannot  tell  where  it  begins  or  ends  ; 
it  may  be  a  dead  strip  of  sea-weed,  TlimanthaUa 
lorea  perhaps,  or  Chorda  Jilum  ;  or  even  a  tarred 
string.  So  thinks  the  httle  fish  who  plays  over 
and  over  it,  till  he  touches  at  last  what  is  too 
surely  a  head.  In  an  instant  a  bell-shaped 
sucker  mouth  has  fastened  to  his  side.  In  an- 
other instant,  from  one  lip,  a  concave  double 
proboscis,  just  like  a  tapir's,  (another  instance  of 
the  repetition  of  forms,)  has  clasped  him  like  a 
finger ;  and  now  begins  the  struggle :  but  in 
vain.  He  is  being  "played"  with  such  a  fi.shing- 
line  as  the  skill  of  a  "NVil.son  or  a  Stoddart  never 
could  invent ;  a  living  line,  with  elasticity  beyond 
that  of  the  most  delicate  lly-rod,  Avhich  foUov.'s 
every  lunge,  shortening  and  lengthening,  slipping 
an<l  twining  round  every  piece  of  gravel  and 
8tem  of  Bca-wccd,  with  a  lirin"  drajf  such  as  no 
Highland  wri.^l  or  .step  could  ever  bring  to  bear 
on  salmon  or  on  trout.  The  victim  is  tired  now  ; 
and  slowly,  and  yet  dexterously,  Iiis  blind   as- 


lOG  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

sailant  is  feeling  and  shifting  along  his  side,  till 
he  reaches  one  end  of  him  ;  and  then  the  black 
lips  expand,  and  slowly  and  surely  the  curved 
finger  begins  packing  him  end-foremost  down  into 
the  gullet,  where  he  sinks,  inch  by  inch,  till  the 
swelling  which  marks  his  place  is  lost  among  the 
coils,  and  he  is  probably  macerated  to  a  pulp 
long  before  he  has  reached  the  opposite  extrem- 
ity of  his  cave  of  doom.  Once  safe  down,  the 
black  murderer  slowly  contracts  again  into  a 
knotted  heap,  and  lies,  like  a  boa  with  a  stag 
inside  him,  motionless  and  blest. 

There ;  we  must  come  away  now,  for  the  tide 
is  over  our  ankles  :  but  touch,  before  you  go,  one 
of  those  little  red  mouths  which  peep  out  of  the 
stone.  A  tiny  jet  of  water  shoots  up  almost  into 
your  face.  The  bivalve  *  who  has  burrowed  into 
the  limestone  knot  (the  softest  part  of  the  stone 
to  his  jaws,  though  the  hardest  to  your  chisel) 
is  scandalized  at  having  the  soft  mouths  of  hi^ 
siphons  so  rudely  touched,  and  taking  your  finger 
for  some  bothering  Annelid,  who  wants  to  nibble 
him,  is  defending  himself;  shooting  you,  as  natu- 
ralists do  humming-birds,  Avith  water.  Let  him 
rest  in  peace  ;  it  will  cost  you  ten  minutes'  hard 
*  Saxicava  ruf/osa. 


THE    ■VVOXDEUS    OF   THE    SHORE.  107 

work,  and  much  dirt,  to  extract  him :  but  if  you 
are  fond  of  shells,  secure  one  or  two  of  those 
beautitul  pink  and  straw-colored  scallops,*  who 
have  gradually  incorporated  the  layers  of  their 
lower  valve  with  the  roughnesses  of  the  stone, 
destroying  thereby  the  beautiful  form  which  be- 
longs to  their  race,  but  not  their  delicate  color. 
There  are  a  few  more  bivalves  too,  adhering  to 
the  stone,  and  those  rare  ones,  and  two  or  three 
delicate  MangcUce  and  Nasce  are  trailing  their 
graceful  spires  up  and  down  in  search  of  food. 
That  little  bright  red  and  yellow  pea,  too,  touch 
it,  —  the  brilliant  colored  cloak  is  withdrawn, 
and,  instead,  you  have  a  beautifully  ribbed  pink 
cowry,t  our  only  European  representative  of 
that  grand  tropical  family.  Cast  one  wondering 
glance,  too,  at  the  forest  of  zo()i)hytes  and  corals, 
Leprnlica  and  Flitstnc,  and  those  (juaint  blue  stars, 
set  In  brown  jelly,  which  are  no  /.oophytes,  but 
respcctiiblc  mollusks,  each  with  his  well-formed 
mouth  and  intestines,  J  but  combined  in  a  peculiar 
form  of  Communism,  of  wliich  all  one  can  say 
is,  that  one  hopes  they  like  it ;  and  that,  at  all 
cvcnta,  they  ngrec  better  than  tin-  heroes  and 
heroines  of  .Mr.  Hawthorne's  Ulilliedalc  Komance. 
*  I'lclcnjnitio.  ^  C'jpraa  Eurrqimt.  \  DotnjUi. 


108 


GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 


Now  away,  and  as  a  specimen  of  the  fertility 
of  the  water-world,  look  at  this  rough  list  of 
species,*  the  greater  part  of  which  are  on  this 
very  stone,  and  all  of  which  you  might  obtain  in 
an  hour,  would  the  rude  tide  wait  for  zoologists ; 
and  remember,  that  the  number  of  individuals 
of  each  species  of  polype  must  be  counted  by 
tens  of  thousands,  and  also,  that,  by  searching 
the  forest  of  sea-weeds  which  covers  the  upper 

*  Ilollusks. 

Doris  tubcrculata.  Anomite, —  2  or  3  spe-  Sortularia  fallax. 

bilincata.  cios.  filicula. 

Eolis  papillosa.  Cynthia, — 2  species.  Plumularia  falcata. 

Pleurobranchus  plu-  Botryllus,       do.  setacca. 


mula. 
Ncritina. 
Cyprsca. 

Trochus, — 2  species 
Mangelia. 
Triton. 
Trophon. 
Nasa,  —  2  species. 
Cerithium. 
Sigarctus. 
Fissurclla. 
Area  lactea. 
Pecten  pusio. 
Tapes  pulkstra. 
Kcllia    suborbicula-    Cucumaria 

ris.  manni. 

Sphsenia  Binghami.      communis. 

Saxicava  rugosa. 

Gastroch(jena    phola-  Polypes. 

<lia.                             Sertularia  pumila, 
Piiolas  parva.  rugosa. 


Sydinum?  Laomedea  geniculata. 

Campanularia     TOlubi- 
Annelids.  jjg 

Phyllodoce,  and  Other  Actinia     mesembryan- 

Nereid  worms. 
Polynoe  squamata. 


themum. 

clavata. 

anguicoma. 

crassicornis. 

Tubulipora  patina. 

hispida. 

serpens. 

Crisia  ebumea. 
Ccllopora  puniicosa. 
Ophiocoma  neglecta.    Lcpralia;,  —  many   spe- 
Ilynd-        cies. 

Membranipora  pilosa. 
Cellularia  ciliata. 

scruposa. 

reptans. 

Flustni        mcmbrana. 

cea,  &c. 


Crustacea, 

4  or  5  species. 

Echinoderms. 

Echinius  miliaria. 
Asterias  gibbo.sa. 


THC    AV0NDER3    OF    THE    SHORE.  109 

surface,  we  should  probably  obtain  some  twenty 
minute  species  more. 

A  goodly  catalogue  this,  surely,  of  the  inhab- 
itants of  three  or  four  large   stones  ;   and   yet 
how  small  a  specimen  of  the  multitudinous  na- 
tions of  the  sea.     From   the  bare  rocks   above 
high-water  mark,  down  to  abysses  deeper  than 
ever  plummet  sounded,  is  life,  everywhere  life; 
fauna  after  fauna,  and  flora  after  flora,  arranged 
in  zones,  according  to  the  amount  of  light  and 
warmth  Avhich  each  species  requires,  and  to  the 
amount  of  pressure  which  they  arc  able  to  en- 
dure.    The  crevices  of  the   highest  rocks,  only 
sprinkled  with  salt  spray  in  spring-tides  and  high 
gales,  have  their  peculiar   little  univalves,  their 
crisp  lichen-like   sea-weeds,   in  myriads  ;   lower 
down,  the  region  of  the  Fuel  (Ijladder-weeds)  has 
its  own  tribes  of  periwinkles  and  limpets  ;  below 
again,  about  tlic  neap-tide  mark,  the  region  of  the 
corallines  and  Alf/fr  furnishes  food  for  yet  other 
species  who  graze  on  its  watery  meadows ;  and 
beneath  nil,  only  uncovered  at  low  spring-tide,  the 
zone  of  the  Lnmiimrun  (the   great  tangles  and 
oar-wccds)  is  most  full  of  all  of  every  imaginable 
form  of  life.     So  that  as  we  descend  the  rocks, 
we  may  compare  ourselves  (likening  small  things 


110  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

to  great)  to  those  who,  descending  the  Andes, 
pass  in  a  single  day  from  the  vegetation  of  the 
Arctic  zone  to  that  of  the  Tropics.  And  here 
and  there,  even  at  half-tide  level,  deep  rock- 
basins,  shaded  from  the  sun  and  always  full  of 
water,  keep  up  in  a  higher  zone  the  vegetation 
of  a  lower  one,  and  afford  in  miniature  an  anal- 
ogy to  those  deep  "  barrancos "  which  split  the 
liigh  table-land  of  Mexico,  down  whose  awful 
cliffs,  swept  by  cool  sea-breezes,  the  traveller 
looks  from  among  the  plants  and  animals  of  the 
temperate  zone,  and  sees  far  below,  dim  through 
their  everlastuag  vapor-bath  of  rank  hot  steam, 
the  mighty  forms  and  gorgeous  colors  of  a  tropic 
forest, 

"I  do  not  wonder,"  says  Mr.  Gosse,  in  his 
charming  "Naturalist's  Rambles  on  the  Devon- 
shire Coast,"  *  "  that  when  Southey  had  an  op- 
portunity of  seeing  some  of  those  beautiful  quiet 
basins  hollowed  in  the  living  rock,  and  stocked 
Avith  elegant  plants  and  animals,  having  all  the 
charm  of  novelty  to  his  eye,  they  should  have 
moved  his  poetic  fancy,  and  found  more  than 
one  place  in  the  gorgeous  imagery  of  his  Orien- 
tal romances.     Just  listen  to  him  :  — 

*P.  187. 


THE    AV0XDEK3    OF    TIIK    SHOIJE.  Ill 

" '  It  was  a  garden  still  bej'ond  all  price, 
Even  yet  it  was  a  place  of  paradise ; 

And  here  were  coral  bowers, 

And  grots  of  madrepores, 
And  banks  of  sponge,  as  soft  and  fair  to  eye 
As  e'er  was  mossy  bed 

^^^le^eon  the  wood-nymphs  lie 
With  languid  hmbs  in  summer's  sultry  hours. 

Here,  too,  were  living  flowers, 

Which,  like  a  bud  compacted, 

Their  purple  cups  contracted ; 

And  now  in  open  blossom  spread, 
Stretched,  Uke  green  anthers,  many  a  seeking  head. 

And  arborets  of  jointed  stone  were  there, 
And  plants  of  fibres  fine  as  silkworm's  thread; 

Yea,  beautiful  as  mermaid's  golden  hair 
Upon  the  waves  dispread. 

Others  that,  like  the  broad  banana  growing, 
liaised  their  long  wrinkled  leaves  of  purple  hue. 

Like  streamers  wide  outflowing.'  —  Kthuma,  xvi.  5. 

"  A  liuiidrctl  times  you  might  fancy  you  saw 
tlie  type,  the  very  original  of  this  description, 
tracing,  line  by  line,  and  image  by  image,  the 
details  of  the  jjictnre  ;  and  acknowledging,  as 
you  proceed,  the  minute  truthfulness  willi  which 
it  has  been  drawn.  For  such  is  the  loveliness 
of  nature  in  these  secluded  reservoirs;,  that  the 
accomplished  pocf,  when  depicting  the  gorgeous 
.scenes  of  Eastern  mythology,  —  scenes  the  wildest 
and    most   extravagant    that    imagination   could 


112  GLAUCUS ;  on, 

paint,  drew  not  upon  the  resources  of  his  prohfic 
fancy  for  imagery  here,  but  was  well  content  to 
jot  down  the  simple  lineaments  of  nature  as  he 
saw  her  in  plain,  homely  England. 

"It  is  a  beautiful  and  fixscinating  sight  for 
those  who  have  never  seen  it  before,  to  see  the 
little  shrubberies  of  pink  coralline  —  <  the  arborets 
of  jointed  stone  '  —  that  fringe  those  pretty  pools. 
It  is  a  charming  sight  to  see  the  crimson  banana- 
like leaves  of  the  Delesseria  waving  in  their  dark- 
est corners;  and  the  purple  fibrous  tufts  of 
PoIi/sipho)iia;  and  Ceramia,  'fine  as  silkworm's 
thread.'  But  there  are  many  others  which  give 
variety  and  impart  beauty  to  these  tide-pools. 
The  broad  leaves  of  the  Ulva,  finer  than  the 
finest  cambric,  and  of  the  brightest  emerald- 
green,  adorn  the  hollows  at  the  highest  level, 
while,  at  the  lowest,  wave  tiny  forests  of  the 
feathery  Ptilota  and  Dasya,  and  large  leaves,  cut 
into  fringes  and  furbelows,  of  rosy  RJiodymenicE. 
All  these  are  lovely  to  behold;  but  I  think  I 
admire  as  much  as  any  of  them  one  of  the  com- 
monest of  our  marine  plants,  Chondrus  crispus. 
It  occurs  in  the  greatest  profusion  on  this  coast, 
in  every  pool  between  tide-marks;  and  every- 
where,— except  in   those  of  the  highest  level. 


THE    -WONDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  113 

where  constant  exposure  to  light  dwarfs  the 
plant,  and  turns  it  of  a  dull  umber-brown  tint,  — 
it  is  elegant  in  form  and  briUiant  in  color.  The 
expanding  fan-shaped  fi-onds,  cut  into  segments, 
cut,  and  cut  again,  make  fine  bushy  tufts  in  a 
deep  pool,  and  every  segment  of  every  frond 
reflects  a  flush  of  the  most  lustrous  azure,  like 
that  of  a  tempered  sword-blade."  —  Gosse's  Dev- 
onshire Coast,  pp.  187  -  189. 

And  the  sea-bottom,  also,  has  its  zones,  at 
different  depths,  and  its  pecuhar  forms  in  pecu- 
liar spots,  affected  by  the  currents  and  the 
nature  of  the  ground,  the  riches  of  which  have 
to  be  seen,  alas !  rather  by  the  imagination  than 
the  eye  ;  for  such  spoonfuls  of  the  treasure  as 
the  dredge  brings  up  to  us  come  too  often  rolled 
and  battered,  torn  from  (lieir  sites  and  con- 
tracted by  fear,  mere  hints  to  us  of  what  the 
populous  reality  below  is  like.  And  often, 
standing  on  the  shore  at  low  tide,  has  one  longed 
to  walk  on  and  in  under  the  waves,  as  the  water- 
ousel  docs  in  the  pools  of  the  mountain  burn, 
and  SCO  it  all  but  (or  a  moment ;  and  a  solemn 
beauty  and  moaning  has  invested  the  old  Greek 
fable  of  Glaucus  tlie  fishernuui,  Jiow  he  ate  of 
the  herb  which  gave  liis  fish  strength  to  leap 
8 


114  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

back  into  their  native  element,  was  seized  on  the 
spot  with  a  strange  longing  to  follow  them  under 
the  waves,  and  became  for  ever  a  companion  of 
the  fair  semi-human  forms  with  which  the  Hel- 
lenic poets  peopled  their  sunny  bays  and  firths, 
feeding  his  "  silent  flocks  "  far  below  on  the  green 
Zostera  beds,  or  basking  with  them  on  the  sunny 
ledges  in  the  summer  noon,  or  wandering  in  the 
still  bays  on  sultry  nights  amid  the  choir  of  Am- 
phitrite  and  her  sea-nymphs, 

"  Joining  tlie  bliss  of  the  gods,  as  they  waken  the  coves  with 
their  laugliter," 

in  nightly  revels,  whereof  one  has  sung,  — 

"  So  they  came  up  in  their  .joy;  and  before  them  the  roll  of 
the  surges 

Sank,  as  the  breezes  sank  dead,  into  smooth  green  foam-flecked 
marble 

Awed ;  and  the  crags  of  the  cUffs  and  the  pines  of  the  moun- 
tains were  silent. 

So  they  came  up  in  their  joy,  and  around  them  the  lamps  of 
the  sea-nymphs, 

Myriad  fiery  globes,  swam  heaving  and  panting,  and  rain- 
bows, 

Crimson  and  azure  and  emerald,  were  broken  in  star-showers, 
lighting, 

Far  in  the  wine-dark  depths  of  the  crystal,  the  gardens  of 
Nereus, 

Coral  and  sea-fan  and  tangle,  tlie  blooms  and  the  palms  of  the 
ocean. 


THE    AVOXDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  115 

So  they  went  on  in  their  joy,  more  white  than  the  foam  which 

they  scattered, 
Laughing  and  singing  and  tossing  and  twining,  while,  eager, 

the  Tritons 
Blinded  v.'ith  kisses  their  eyes,  unreproved,  and  above  them  in 

worship 
Fluttered  the  terns,  and  the  sea-gulls  swept  past  them  on 

silvery  pinions. 
Echoing  softly  their  laughter;  around  them  the  wantoning 

dolphins 
Sighed  as  they  plunged,  full  of  love ;  and  the  great  sea-horses 

which  bore  them 
Cur\-cd  up  their  crests  in  their  pride  to  the  deUcate  arms  of 

tlieir  riders, 
I'awing  the  spray  into  gems,  till  a  fiery  rainfall,  unharming, 
Sparkled  and  gleamed  on  the  limbs  of  the  maids,  and  the  coils 

of  the  mermen. 
So  they  went  on  in  their  joy,  bathed  round  with  the  fiery 

coolness, 
Needing  nor  sun  nor  moon,  self-lighted,  immortal:  but  others, 
Pitiful,  floated  in  silence  apart;  on  their  knees  lay  the  sea- 
boys 
WTiclmed  by  the  roll  of  the  surge,  swept  down  by  the  anger 

of  Nercus; 
Hapless,  whom  never  atmin  upon  quay  or  strand  shall  their 

mothers 
Welcome  with  garlands  and  vows  to  tlie  temples ;  but,  wearily 

pining, 
Uazc  over  iitland  and  main  for  the  sails  which  return  not; 

they  heedless 
Sleep  in  soft  bosoms  for  ever,  ami  dream  of  the  surge  and  the 

sco-maids. 
So  they  past  by  in  their  joy,  like  a  dream,  down  the  murmur- 
ing ripples." 


116  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

Such  a  rhapsody  may  be  somewhat  out  of 
order,  even  in  a  popular  scientific  book ;  and 
yet  one  cannot  help  at  moments  envying  the 
old  Greek  imagination,  which  could  inform  the 
soulless  sea-world  with  a  human  life  and  beauty. 
For  after  all,  star-fishes  and  sea-anemones  are 
dull  substitutes  for  Sirens  and  Tritons  ;  the 
lamps  of  the  sea-nymphs,  those  glorious  phos- 
phorescent medusaj  whose  beauty  Mr.  Gosse  sets 
forth  so  well  with  pen  and  pencil,  are  not  as 
attractive  as  the  sea-nymphs  themselves  would 
be ;  and  who  would  not,  hke  Menelaus,  take  the 
gray  old  man  of  the  sea  himself,  asleep  upon  the 
rocks,  rather  than  one  of  his  seal-herd,  probably 
too  with  the  same  result  as  the  world-famous 
combat  in  the  Antiquary,  between  Hector  and 
Phoca  ?  And  yet  —  is  there  no  human  interest 
in  these  pursuits,  more  human,  ay,  and  more 
divine,  than  there  would  be  even  in  those  Triton 
and  Nereid  dreams,  if  reaUzed  to  sight  and 
sense  ?  Heaven  forbid  that  those  should  say  so, 
whose  wanderings  among  rock  and  pool  have 
been  mixed  up  with  holiest  passages  of  friendship 
and  of  love,  and  the  intercommunion  of  equal 
minds  and  sympathetic  hearts,  and  the  laugh  of 
children  drinking  in  health  from  every  breeze, 
and  instruction  at  every  step,  running  ever  and 


THE    -WOXDEES    OF    THE    SHORE.  117 

anon  with  proud  delight  to  add  their  little 
treasure  to  their  parents'  stock,  and  of  happy 
friendly  evenings  spent  over  the  microscope  and 
the  vase,  in  examining,  arranging,  preserving, 
notin"'  down  in  the  diary  the  wonders  and  the 
labors  of  the  happy,  busy  day.  No  ;  such 
short  glimpses  of  the  water-world  as  our  present 
appliances  afford  us  are  full  enough  of  pleasure ; 
and  we  will  not  envy  Glaucus  ;  we  will  not  even 
be  over-anxious  for  the  success  of  his  only  mod- 
em imitator,  the  French  naturalist  who  is  report- 
ed to  have. just  fitted  himself  with  a  water-proof 
dress  and  breathing  apparatus,  in  order  to  walk 
the  bottom  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  see  for 
himself  how  the  world  goes  on  at  the  fifty-fathom 
line.  We  will  be  content  with  dredging  next 
year  as  we  dredged  this  ;  and  in  the  mean  while 
let  Mr.  Gosse  tell  us  some  of  the  pleasures  of 
that  little-known  amusement :  — 

"  Tlic  dredge  is  a  strong  bag  witli  an  iron 
frame  around  the  mouth,  which  is  drawn  over 
the  sca-boltora  by  a  rope.  The  rudest  form  of 
the  instrument  is  tliat  used  for  procuring  oysters. 
The  bag  is  generally  made  of  iron  rings  linked 
together,  and  one  of  the  longer  sides  of  the  frame 
is  turned  up  to  make  a  scraping-lip. 


118  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

"  But  the  naturalists'  dredge  is  an  improve- 
ment upon  this  form  ;  the  oyster-dredge,  with  all 
the  care  employed  in  heaving,  will  frequently 
turn  over  in  sinking,  so  that  the  unlipped  side  of 
the  frame  which  will  not  scrape  is  on  the  ground. 
Hence  we  have  each  of  the  two  long  sides  of  the 
mouth  made  into  a  scraping-lip,  so  that  the  in- 
strument cannot  fall  wrong.  Instead  of  rings 
our  body  is  made  of  spun-yarn  (a  sort  of  small 
rope)  or  fishing-line,  netted  with  a  small  mesh ; 
or,  which  is  still  better,  of  a  raw  hide,  (such  as 
those  which  the  tobacconists  receive  from  South 
America  inclosing  tobacco,  the  hides  of  the  wild 
cattle  of  the  Pampas,)  cut  into  thongs,  and 
netted  in  like  manner.  Sometimes  the  bag  is 
made  of  coarse  sackcloth,  or  of  canvas,  but  the 
former  soon  wears  out,  and  the  latter  is  not  suf- 
ficiently pervious  to  water;  an  important  point, 
for  if  there  be  not  a  free  current  through  the 
bag,  while  on  the  bottom,  it  embraces  nothing, 
merely  driving  everything  before  it,  and  com- 
ing up  empty.  The  hide-net  is  almost  inde- 
structible. 

"  To  the  two  ends,  or  short  sides  of  the  frame, 
which  forms  an  oblong  square,  are  attached  by  a 
hinge  two  long  triangles,  which,  meeting  in  front 


THE    "SVOXDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  119 

at  some  distance  from  the  mouth,  are  connectecl 
by  a  swivel-joint.  To  this  the  dragging  rope  i? 
bent,  which  must  be  long  enough  to  allow  thrice 
as  much  at  least  to  be  overboard  as  the  perpen- 
dicular depth  would  require  ;  if  you  are  dredging 
in  ten  fathoms,  you  must  use  at  least  thirty 
fathoms  of  line,  or  your  dredge  will  make 
long  jumps  over  the  ground  instead  of  steadily 
raking  it.  The  inward  end  of  the  rope  having 
been  made  fast  to  one  of  the  thwarts,  the 
dredge  is  hove  to  windward,  and  the  boat  is 
put  before  the  wind,  or  at  least  allowed  a  flow- 
injr  sheet. 


o 


"  But  before  we  ran  down  to  our  dredjrin"- 
ground,  my  master  of  the  ceremonies  proposed 
that  wc  should  haul  up  a  point  or  two,  and  have 
a  scrape  on  tlie  Zostera  beds  that  cover  many 
acres  of  shallow  water  in  the  bight  of  Preston 
Valley.  But  let  me  introduce  my  man  to  you. 
A  clever  fellow  is  .Tone,  an<l  though  only  bred  as 
a  fisherman,  he  is  quite  an  amalcur  naturalist. 
There  i.s  nobody  else  in  "Weymouth  harbor  that 
knows  anything  about  dredging  ;  (I  have  it  from 
his  own  lips,  fo  you  may  rely  upon  it ;)  hut  he  is 
familiar  with    the  feel   of  nhnost  every  yard  of 


1 20  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

bottom  from  "Wliitenose  to  Church-Hope,  and 
from  St.  Aldham's  Head  to  the  BiU.  He  follows 
dredging  -with  the  zest  of  a  savant ;  and  it  is 
amusing  really  to  hear  how  he  pours  forth 
the  crackjaw,  the  sesquipedalian  nomenclature. 
'  Now,  Sir,  if  you  do  want  a  Gastrochcena,  I  can 
just  put  down  your  dredge  upon  a  lot  of  'em ; 
we  '11  bring  up  three  and  four  in  a  stone.'  '  I  'm 
in  hopes  we  shall  have  a  good  Crihella  or  two  off 
this  bank,  if  we  don't  get  choked  up  with  them 
'ere  Ophiocomas.^  He  tells  me  in  confidence  that 
he  has  been  sorely  puzzled  to  find  a  name  for  his 
boat,  but  has  at  length  determined  to  appellate 
her  '  The  Turritella ;  just  to  astonish  the  fisher- 
men, you  know,  Sir,'  —  with  an  accompanying 
wink  and  chuckle,  and  a  patronizing  nudge  in 
my  ribs.  Jone  is  a  proud  man  when  he  gets  a 
real  savant  alone  in  a  boat ;  and  he  talks  witlj 
delight  of  the  feats  which  he  has  achieved  in  the 
dredging  line  for  Mr.  Bowerbank,  Mr.  Hanley, 
and  Professor  Forbes. 

«  •  •  •  • 

"  Well,  here  we  are  in  the  bight,  just  off  the 
mouth  of  Preston  Valley,  the  only  bit  of  pretty 
scenery  anywhere  near.  This,  however,  is  a  little 
gem  ;  a  verdant  dell  opening  to  the  sea,  through 


THE    AVONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  121 

which  a  streamlet  runs,  with  the  sides  and  bottom 
covered  with  woods,  a  rare  feature  in  this  neigh- 
borhood. We  are  over  the  Zostera  :  the  beds  of 
dark  green  grass  are  waving  in  the  heave  of  the 
swell,  and  we  can  make  out  the  long  and  nar- 
row blades  by  closely  looking  down  beneath  the 
shadow  of  the  boat.  Here  then  is  the  place  for 
the  kecr-drag.  Down  it  goes  and  sinks  into  the 
long  grass,  while  we  slowly  drag  it  for  a  couple 
of  hundred  yards  or  so. 

'•  When  disposed  to  tiy  our  luck,  we  hauled  on 
the  rope  till  we  got  the  mouth  of  the  drag  to  the 
top  of  the  water ;  a  turn  or  hitch  was  then 
taken  round  a  belaying  pin,  with  the  two  side 
lines  of  the  bridle,  and  the  point  of  the  net  only 
was  then  hauled  on  board,  put  into  a  pan  of 
water  and  untied.  Here  was  congregated  the 
chief  part  of  the  prey  taken,  and  hence  the  need 
of  having  the  meshes  so  small  in  this  part.  Out 
swam  in  a  moment  a  good  many  little  fishes  that 
haunt  the  grass-bed  ;  as  Pipe-fishes  {Stjufjuathns) 
of  several  species,  Gobies  (Gobius  iniipunctatiis. 
Sec,  cVc.)  and  bright  blue  Coimcrs  (Labriis  and 
Crcnilahrus).  Witii  these  were  two  or  three 
active  and  chnrming  Cuttles  {Sepiohi) ;  and 
clinging  to  the  meshes  of  the  net  in  various  parts 


122  GLAL'CUS  ;   OR, 

were  several  species   of  Nudibrancli   MoUusca, 
creatures  of  remarkable  elegance  and  beauty. 

■  •  •  •  • 

*'  Meanwhile  we  put  the  boat  before  the  wind, 
and  run  along  the  inhospitable  coast  on  our  left. 
"We  leave  the  pleasant  vale  behind,  and  skim 
swiftly  by  the  black  rocks  of  RatclifF  Head,  and 
the  distorted  and  confused  strata  of  Goggin's  Ber- 
row.  We  pass  Osmington  Mills,  where  a  rather 
ample  sheet  of  water  is  poured  in  a  foaming  cas- 
cade over  the  low  cliffs,  and  where  those  curious 
circular  blocks  of  grit-stone,  flat  on  one  side  and 
conical  on  the  other,  are  imbedded  with  regu- 
larity on  the  sandy  face  of  the  precipice:  and 
leave  on  our  quarter  the  rocks,  where  the 
abundance  of  iron  pyrites  and  sulphur  has  more 
than  once  presented  the  strange  phenomenon  of 
spontaneous  fire ;  a  phenomenon  distinctly  re- 
membered still  by  the  inhabitants  of  Weymouth, 
who  night  after  night  used  to  gaze  out  with  won- 
der on  the  burning  cliffs. 

"  At  length  we  are  under  Whitenose,  that  bold 
chalk  cliff  that  is  so  prominent  an  object  as  the 
eye  roves  along  the  coast  line  from  Weymouth. 
Here  we  turn  the  boat's  edge  to  the  southward, 
and   throw    the    dredge    overboard   in   fourteen 


THE  -WOXDEKS  OF  THE  SHORE.     123 

fathoms.  And  -while  I  am  enjoying  with  the 
Une  in  my  hand,  what  a  dredger  particularly 
likes  to  feel,  the  vibration  produced  by  the 
instrument  as  it  rumbles  and  scrapes  over  a 
moderately  rough  bottom,  telling  that  it  is  doing 
its  work  weU,  we  will  gaze  with  admiration  on 
this  magnificent  precipice  of  dazzling  white  that 
rears  its  noble  head  behind  us.  It  is  the  termi- 
nation of  that  range  of  chalk  hills  which,  with 
some  few  interruptions,  intersect  the  kingdom 
from  the  Yorkshire  coast  to  Dorset :  and  stands 
in  simple  majesty,  the  snowy  whiteness  of  its  vast 
face  unvaried,  except  by  the  slanting  lines  which 
mark  the  dipping  strata  running  across  it,  and 
which  look  so  fine  and  so  regular,  as  if  they  had 
been  drawn  by  the  pen  of  a  geometrician. 

.  •  •  • 

*'  But  up  with  the  dredge ;  let  us  see  our  suc- 
cess. It  feels  pretty  heavy  as  it  mounts,  and 
here,  as  it  l>rcaks  the  surface,  we  can  already 
sec  some  bright-hued  and  active  creatures  in  its 
capacious  bag.  A  wide  board,  resting  on  two 
thwart?,  serves  for  a  table,  and  on  this  —  a  few  of 
the  more  delicate  things,  that  ajjpear  at  a  glance, 
havinjr  been  first  taken  out  —  the  whole  contents 
are  poured.   Tlie  empty  dredge  is  returned  to  the 


124  GLAUcus ;  ou, 

deep  for  another  haul,  while  we  set  eagerly  to 
work  with  fingers  and  eyes  on  the  heap  before  us. 
"  "What  a  pleasure  it  is  to  examine  a  tolerably 
prolific  dredge-haul!  I  am  not  going  to  enu- 
merate all  the  things  that  we  found;  it  would 
make  a  pretty  long  list.  Numbers  of  rough 
stones,  and  of  old  worm-eaten  shells,  half  a  bro- 
ken bottle,  and  other  strange  matters,  were  there, 
—  every  one,  however  rude,  worthy  of  close  ex- 
amination, because  studded  with  elegant  zoo- 
phytes, the  tubes  of  serpulas  and  other  anneUdse, 
bright-colored  pellucid  ascidians,  graceful  nudi- 
branch  molluscae,  the  spawn  of  fishes,  and  end- 
less other  things.  Brittle-stars,  by  scores,  were 
twining  their  long  spiny  arms,  like  lizard's  tails, 
among  the  tangled  mass,  arrayed  in  the  most 
varied  and  most  gorgeous  hues  of  all  varieties  of 
kaleidoscope  patterns,  (see  plate  IV.,)  *  and  sand- 
stars  not  a  few.  The  latter  are  much  more  deli- 
cate in  constitution  than  the  former,  being  very 
difficult  to  keep  alive,  and  also  much  more  brit- 
tle ;  the  former,  notwithstanding  their  English 
name,  I  have  not  found  so  particularly  fragile. 
Among  other  members  of  this  wonderful  class 
of  animals,  we   obtained,  in   the  course  of  our 

*  Gosse's  "  Aquarium." 


THE    -WONDERS    OF    THE    SHOKE.  125 

day's  work,  several  of  that  fine  but  common  one, 
the  twelve-rayed  sun-star   (Solaster  papposa),  a 
showy   creature,  dressed   in  rich  scarlet  livery, 
some  eight  inches  in   diameter.     Two  or  three 
of  a  species  usually  counted  rare  also  occurred, 
the  bird's   foot  {Palmipes  memhranaceus),  more 
curious,  and  equally  beautiful.     (See  plate  III.) 
It  resembles  a  pentagonal  piece  of  thin  leather, 
with  the  angles  a  little  produced,  and  regularly 
pointed.     The  central  part  of  this  disc  is  scarlet, 
and  a  double  line  of  scarlet  proceeds  from  this  to 
each  angle,  while  the  whole  is  margined  by  a  nar- 
row band  of  the  same  gorgeous  hue.   The  remain- 
der of  the  surface  is  of  a  pale  yellow  or  cream 
color,  and  covered,  in  the  most  elegant  manner, 
with  tufts  of  minute  spines,   arranged    in   lines 
which  cross  each  other,  lozenge-fashioned,  near  the 
middle  of  the  disc,  and  run  parallel  to  each  other, 
at  riglit  angles  to  the  margin,  between  the  points. 
"  Not  less  attractive  wiis  another  star-fish,  the 
Kycd    Cribclla    {('ribella   ocnlata).     It     consists 
of  five  finger-like  rays,  tapering  to  a  blunt  point, 
and    cleft   nearly   to  the   centre,  the  consistence 
.stiflly  fleshy,  or  almost  eartilaginous.     'J'lie  hue 
of  both  disc  and  rays,  or  the  superior  surface,  is 
a  fine  ro.-iy  purine.     (See  plate  III.) 


126  GLAUCUS  ;   OK, 

"  All  these  arc  very  attractive  occupants  of  an 
aquarium.  They  are  active  and  restless,  though 
slow  in  movement,  continually  crawling  about 
the  rocks,  and  round  the  sides  of  the  tank,  by  a 
gliding  motion  produced  by  the  attachment  and 
shifting  of  hundreds  of  sucker  feet,  which  ai'C 
protruded  at  will  through  minute  pores  in  the 
calcareous  integument.  Their  showy  colors  are 
exhibited  to  advantage  on  the  dark  rocks,  around 
the  projections  and  angles  of  which  they  wind 
their  flexible  bodies,  now  and  then  turning  back 
a  ray,  from  which  the  pellucid  suckers  are  seen 
stretching  and  sprawling  ;  and  as  they  mount  the 
glass,  not  only  can  their  hues  be  admired,  but 
the  exquisite  structure  of  their  spines,  and  the 
mechanism  of  their  suckers,  can  be  studied  at 
leisure. 

"  Every  haul  of  the  dredge  brought  up 
several  univalve  shells,  tenanted,  not  by  their 
original  constructors  and  proprietors,  but  by 
their  busy  intruder,  the  soldier  crab  {Pagurus). 
Several  species  of  this  curious  creature  occurred. 
.  .  .  I  shall  only  just  allude  to  the  beautiful 
cloak  anemone  (Adamsia  palliata),  and  several 
other  species  of  this  charming  family.  Long- 
legged  spider  crabs,  of  the  genera  Stenorynchus, 


THE    AVONDEKS    OF    THE    SHORE.  127 

Inaclius,  cScc,  were  abundant,  sprawling  tlieir 
slender  limbs,  like  bristles,  to  an  unconscionable 
distance,  tempting  us  to  think  that,  if  we  had 
legs  like  these,  we  might  cover  the  ground  in  a 
style  that  would  put  to  shame  the  old  giant- 
slayer's  seven-league  boots. 

"  But,  as  I  have  said,  time  and  space  would 

fail  me  if  I  were  to  attempt  an  enumeration  of 

all  the  objects  of  interest  that  were  brought  to 

view  in   the  course  of  a  good    day's   dredging. 

Mollusca,  both  naked  and  shelled,  both  univalve 

and    bivalve,   and   crabs,  prawns,  and   shrimps, 

worms,  sponges,  sea-weeds,  all  presented  claims 

to  notice,  and  all  contributed  representatives  to 

ray  stock,   in  the   successive    emptyings   of  the 

dredge  ;  for  we  worked  pretty  nearly  all  the  way 

home.     And  when  we  came  to  bring  on  shore 

the  bottles,  jars,  pans,  pails,  and  tubs,  we  found 

them  all  well  tenanted  with   strange  creatures, 

the  greater  part  of  which  were   despatched  on 

their  way  to  London  by  the  same  evening  mail 

train."  —  Gusscs  Arjuariiim,  jjp.  55,  58,  59,  G3. 

But  if  you  cannot  afTord  the  expense  of  your 
own  dredge  and  boat,  and  the  time  and  trouble 
necessary  to  follow  the  occupation  scientifically, 
yet  every  trawk-r  and  oyster  boat  will  afford  you 


128  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

a  tolerable  satisfaction.  Go  on  board  one  of 
these ;  and  while  the  trawl  is  down,  spend  a 
pleasant  hour  or  two  in  talking  with  the  simple, 
honest,  sturdy  fellows  who  work  it,  from  whom 
(if  you  are  as  fortunate  as  we  have  been  for 
many  a  year  past)  you  may  get  many  a  moving 
story  of  danger  and  sorrow,  as  well  as  many  a 
shrewd  practical  maxim,  and  often,  too,  a  living 
recognition  of  God,  and  the  providence  of  God, 
which  will  send  you  home,  perhaps,  a  wiser  and 
more  genial  man.  And  when  the  trawl  is  hauled, 
wait  till  the  fish  are  counted  out,  and  packed 
away,  and  then  kneel  down  and  inspect  (in  a 
pair  of  Mackintosh  leggings,  and  your  oldest 
coat)  the  crawling  heap  of  shells  and  zoophytes 
which  remains  behind  about  the  decks,  and  you 
will  find,  if  a  landsman,  enough  to  occupy  you 
for  a  week  to  come.  Nay,  even  if  it  be  too  calm 
for  trawHng,  condescend  to  go  out  in  a  coble,  and 
help  to  haul  some  honest  fellow's  deep-sea  lines 
and  lobster-pots,  and  you  will  find  more  and 
stranger  things  about  them  than  even  fish  or 
lobsters  :  though  they,  to  him  who  has  eyes  to 
see,  are  strange  enough. 

We  speak  from  experience  ;  for  it  was  but  the 
other  day  that,  in  the  north  of  Devon,  we  found 


THE    -VVOXDEnS    OF   THE    SHORE.  129 

sermons,  not  indeed  in  stones,  but  in  a  creatiu'e 
reputed  among  the  most  worthless  of  sea-vermin. 
I  had  been  lounging  about  all  the  morning  on 
the  little  pier,  waiting,  with  the  rest  of  the 
village,  for  a  trawling  breeze  which  would  not 
come.  Two  o'clock  was  past,  and  still  the  red 
mainsails  of  the  skiffs  hung  motionless,  and 
their  images  quivered  head  downwards  in  the 
glassy  swell, 

"As  idle  as  a  painted  ship 
Upon  a  painted  ocean." 

It  Avas  neap-tide,  too,  and  therefore  nothing  could 
be  done  among  the  rocks.  So,  in  despair,  findino- 
an  old  coast-guard  friend  starting  for  his  lobster- 
pots,  I  determined  to  save  the  old  man's  arms,  by 
rowing  liim  up  tlie  sliore  ;  and  then  paddled  home- 
ward again,  under  tliu  Iiigh  green  northern  Mall. 
five  hundred  feet  of  cliff  furred  (u  the  water's 
edge  with  rich  oak  woods,  against  wliose  base 
the  smooth  Atlantic  swell  died  whi.spering,  as  if 
curling  itself  up  to  sleep  at  last  witliin  that 
sheltered  nook,  tired  with  ils  weary  wanderinf's. 
The  sun  sank  lower  atid  hnver  behind  the  deer- 
park  point ;  the  white  stair  of  houses  up  the 
glen  was  wrapt  every  moment  deeper  and  deeper 
in  hazy  smoke  and  .shade,  as  the  light  faded; 
9 


loO  GLAUCUS  ;    OK, 

the  evening  fires  were  lighted  one  by  one  ;  the 
soft  murmur  of  the  water-fall,  and  the  pleasant 
laugh  of  children,  and  the  splash  of  homeward 
oars,  came  clearer  and  clearer  to  the  eaV  at  every 
stroke  :  and  as  we  rowed  on,  arose  the  recollec- 
tion of  many  a  brave  and  wise  friend,  whose  lot 
was  cast  in  no  such  western  paradise,  but  rather 
in  the  infernos  of  this  sinful  earth,  toiling  even 
then  amid  the  festering  alleys  of  Bcrmondsey  and 
Bethnal  Green,  to  palliate  death  and  misery 
which  they  had  vainly  labored  to  prevent, 
watching  the  strides  of  that  very  cholera  which 
they  had  been  striving  for  years  to  ward  off, 
now  re-admitted  in  spite  of  all  their  warnings,  by 
the  carelessness,  and  laziness,  and  greed  of  sinful 
man.  And  as  I  thought  over  the  whole  hapless 
question  of  sanatory  reform,  proved  long  since 
a  moral  duty  to  God  and  man,  possible,  easy, 
even  pecuniarily  profitable,  and  yet  left  undone, 
there  seemed  a  sublime  irony,  most  humbling  to 
man,  in  some  of  Nature's  processes,  and  in  the 
silent  and  unobtrusive  perfection  with  which  she 
has  been  taught  to  anticipate,  since  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world,  some  of  the  loftiest  discoveries 
of  modern  science,  of  which  we  are  too  apt  to 
boast  as  if  we  had  created  the  method  by  dis- 


THE    WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  131 

covering  its  possibility.  Created  it?  Alas  for 
the  pride  of  human  genius,  and  the  autotheism 
which  would  make  man  the  measure  of  all  things,  ^ 
and  the  centre  of  the  universe !  All  the  inval- 
uable laws  and  methods  of  sanatory  reform  at 
best  are  but  clumsy  imitations  of  the  unseen 
wonders  which  every  animalcule  and  leaf  have  \ 
been  working  since  the  world's  foundation,  with 
this  slight  difference  between  them  and  us,  that 
they  fulfil  their  appointed  task,  and  we  do  not. 

The  sickly  geranium  which  spreads  its  blanched 
leaves  against  the  cellar  panes,  and  peers  up,  as 
if  imploringly,  to  the  narrow  slip  of  sunlight  at 
the  top  of  the  narrow  alley,  had  it  a  voice,  could 
tell  more  truly  than  ever  a  doctor  in  the  town, 
why  little  Uessy  sickened  of  the  scarlatina,  and 
little  Johnny  of  the  hooping-cough,  till  the  tod- 
dling wee  thing.-i  who  used  to  pet  and  water  it 
were  carried  ofT  each  and  all  of  them  one  by  one 
to  the  churchyard  sleep,  while  the  father  and 
mother  sat  at  home,  trj'ing  to  sujjply  by  gm 
tliat  very  vital  energy  which  fresh  air  and  pure 
water,  and  the  balmy  br<'ath  of  woods  and 
heaths,  were  made  by  God  to  give  ;  and  how  the 
little  geranium  did  its  best,  likg  a  heaven-sent 
angel,  to  right  the  wrong  which  man's  ignorance 


132  GLArcus ;  or, 

had  begotten,  and  drank  in,  day  by  day,  the 
poisoned  atmosphere,  and  formed  it  into  iiiir 
green  leaves,  and  breathed  into  the  children's 
faces  from  every  pore,  whenever  they  bent  over 
it,  the  life-giving  oxygen  for  "which  their  dulled 
blood  and  festered  lungs  were  craving  in  vain  ; 
fulfilling  God's  will  itself,  though  man  would 
not,  too  careless  or  too  covetous  to  see,  after  six 
thousand  years  of  boasted  progress,  why  God 
had  covered  the  earth  with  grass,  herb,  and  tree, 
a  living  and  life-giving  garment  of  perpetual 
health  and  youth. 

It  is  too  sad  to  think  long  about,  lest  wc 
become  very  Ileraclituses.  Let  us  take  the 
other  side  of  the  matter  with  Democritus,  try 
to  laugh  man  out  of  a  little  of  his  boastful 
ignorance  and  self-satisfied  clumsiness,  and  tell 
him,  that  if  the  House  of  Commons  would  but 
summon  one  of  the  little  Paramecia  from  any 
Thames  sewer-mouth,  to  give  his  evidence  before 
their  next  Cholera  Committee,  sanatory  blue- 
books,  invaluable  as  they  are,  would  be  super- 
seded for  ever  and  a  day,  and  Sir  William 
Molesworth  would  no  longer  have  to  confess, 
as  he  did  last  year,  that  he  knew  of  no  means 
of  stopping  the  smells  which  were  driving  the 


THE    'VVOXDERS    OF    THE    SHOKE.  133 

members  out  of  the  House,  and  the  judges  out  of 
"Westminster  Hall. 

Xay,  in  the  boat  at  the  minute  of  which  I  have 
been  speaking,  silent  and  neglected,  sat  a  fellow- 
passenger,  who  was  a  greater  adept  at  removing 
nuisances  than  the  whole  Board  of  Health  put 
together ;  and  who  had  done  his  work,  too,  with  a 
cheapness  unparalleled;  for  all  his  good  deeds 
had  not  as  yet  cost  the  state  one  penny.  True, 
he  lived  by  his  business;  so  do  other  inspectors 
of  nuisances.:  but  nature,  instead  of  paying  Maia 
Squinado,  Esquire,  some  five  hundred  pounds 
sterling  per  annum  for  his  labor,  had  contrived, 
with  a  sublime  simplicity  of  economy  which  Mr. 
Hume  might  have  envied  and  admired  afar  off,  to 
make  him  do  his  work  gratis,  by  giving  him  the 
nuisances  as  his  perquisites,  and  teaching  him 
liow  to  eat  them.  Certainly,  (without  going  the 
length  of  the  Curibs,  who  uphold  Cannibalism  be- 
(^ause,  they  say,  it  makes  war  cheap,  and  precludes 
entirely  the  need  of  a  commissariat,)  this  cardinal 
virtue  of  cheapness  ought  to  make  Squinado  an 
interesting  object  in  the  eyes  of  the  present 
generation,  especially  as  he  was  at  that  moment 
ji  true  sanatory  martyr,  having,  like  many  of  his 
human   fellow-workers,  got  into  a  fearful  scrape 


134  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

by  meddling  with  those  existing  interests,  and 
"  vested  rights  which  are  but  vested  wrongs," 
which  have  proved  fatal  already  to  more  than  one 
Board  of  Health.  For  last  night,  as  he  was  sit- 
ting quietly  under  a  stone  in  four  fathoms  water, 
he  became  aware  (whether  by  sight,  smell,  or  that 
mysterious  sixth  sense,  to  us  unknown,  which 
seems  to  reside  in  his  delicate  feelers)  of  a  pal- 
pable nuisance  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood ; 
and,  like  a  trusty  servant  of  the  public,  turned 
out  of  his  bed  instantly,  and  went  in  search  ; 
till  he  discovered,  hanging  among  what  he 
judged  to  be  the  stems  of  tangle  (Latninaria), 
three  or  four  large  pieces  of  stale  thornback, 
of  most  evil  savor,  and  highly  prejudicial  to 
the  purity  of  the  sea,  and  the  health  of  the 
neighboring  hei'rings.  Happy  Squinado !  He 
needed  not  to  discover  the  limits  of  his  author- 
ity, to  consult  any  lengthy  Nuisances'  Removal 
Act,  with  its  clauses,  and  counter-clauses,  and 
exceptions,  and  explanations  of  interpretations, 
and  interpretations  of  explanations.  Nature, 
who  can  afford  to  be  arbitrary,  because  she 
is  perfect,  and  to  give  her  servants  irrespon- 
sible powers,  because  she  has  trained  them  to 
their  work,  had   bestowed   on    him   and   on    hi.^ 


THE    -WONDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  loO 

forefathers,  as  general  health  inspectors,  those 
very  summary  powers  of  entrance  and  removal 
in  the  watery  realms,  for  which  common  sense, 
public  opinion,  and  private  philanthropy  are  still 
entreating  vainly  in  the  terrestrial  realms ;  so 
finding  a  hole,  in  he  went,  and  began  to  remove 
the  nuisance,  without  "  waiting  twenty-four 
hours,"  "  laying  an  information,"  "  serving  a 
notice,"  or  any  other  vain  delay.  The  evil  was 
there,  —  and  there  it  should  not  stay ;  so,  having 
neither  cart  nor  barrow,  he  just  began  putting  it 
into  his  stomach,  and  in  the  mean  while  set  his 
assistants  to  work  likewise.  For  suppose  not, 
gentle  reader,  that  Squinado  went  alone ;  in  his 
train  were  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  as 
good  as  he,  each  in  liis  ofTice,  and  as  cheaply 
paid  ;  who  needed  no  cumbrous  baggage-train  of 
force-pumps,  hose,  chloride  of  lime  packets,  wliite- 
wash,  pails  or  brusljcs,  but  were  every  man  hi? 
own  instrument ;  and,  to  .save  expense  of  transit, 
just  grew  on  Squinado's  back.  Do  yon  doubt 
the  assertion  ?  Then  lift  him  up  hitlier,  and, 
putting  him  gently  into  that  shallow  jar  of  salt- 
water, look  at  liim  through  the  hand-magnifier, 
and  sec  how  nature  is  mnj-ima  in  minimis. 

There  he  sit.-J,  twiddling  his  feelers   (a  substi- 


136 


GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 


tute,  it  seems,  with  Crustacea  for  biting  their  nails 
when  they  are  puzzled),  and  by  no  means  lovely 
to  look  on  in  vulgar  eyes ;  —  about  the  bigness  of 
a  man's  fist ;  a  round-bodied,  spindle-shanked, 
crusty,  prickly,  dirty  fellow,  with  a  villanous 
squint,  too,  in  those  little  bony  eyes,  which  never 
look  for  a  moment  both  the  same  way.  Never 
mind  :  many  a  man  of  genius  is  ungainly  enough ; 
and  nature,  if  you  will  observe,  as  if  to  make  up 
to  him  for  his  uncomehness,  has  arrayed  him  as 
Solomon  in  all  his  glory  never  was  arrayed,  and 
so  fulfilled  one  of  the  few  rational  proposals  of 
old  Fourier,  that  scavengers,  chimney-sweeps, 
and  other  workers  in  disgusting  employments, 
should  be  rewarded  for  their  self-sacrifice  in  be- 
half of  the  public  weal  by  some  peculiar  badge 
of  honor,  or  laurel  crown.  Not  that  his  crown, 
like  those  of  the  old  Greek  games,  is  a  mere  use- 
less badge ;  on  the  contrary,  his  robe  of  state  is 
composed  of  his  fellow-servants.  His  whole  back 
is  covered  with  a  little  gray  forest  of  branching 
hairs,  fine  as  the  spider's  web,  each  branchlet 
carrying  its  little  pearly  ringed  club,  each  club  its 
rose-crowned  polype,  like  (to  quote  Mr.  Gosse's 
comparison)  the  unexpanded  buds  of  the  acacia.* 

*  Coryne  ramosa. 


THE    AVOXDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  137 

On  that  leg  grows,  amid  anotbei-  copse  of  the 
gray  polypes,  a  delicate  straw-colored  Sertularia, 
branch  on  branch  of   tiny   double    combs,   each 
tooth   of  the   comb   being   a   tube  containing  a 
living  flower ;  on  another  leg  another  Sertularia, 
coarser,  but  still  beautiful ;  and  round  it  again 
has  trained  itself,  parasitic  on  the  parasite,  plant 
upon  plant  of  glass  ivy,  bearing   crystal  bells,* 
each  of  which,  too,  protrudes  its  living  flower ;  on 
another  leg  is  a  fresh  species,  like  a  little  heather- 
bush  of  whitest  ivory ,t  and  every  needle  leaf  a 
polype  cell  —  let  us  stop  before  the  imagination 
grows  dizzy    witli    the    contemplation   of    those 
myriads  of  beautiful  atomies.    And  what  is  their 
use  ?     Each  living  flower,  each  polype  mouth  is 
feeding  fast,  sweeping  into  itself,  by  the  perpetual 
currents  caused  by  the  delicate  fringes  upon  its 
rays,  (so   minute    these   last,    that   tlieir   motion 
only  betrays  their  presence,)  each  tiniest  atom  of 
decaying   matter   in   the   surrounding   water,  to 
convert  it,  by  Fome  wondrous  alchemy,  into  fresh 
cells  and  buds,  and  rillier  build  up  a  fresli  branch 
in  their  thousand-tenanted  tree,  or  form  an  egg- 
cell,  from  whence,  when  ripe,  may  issue,  not  a 
fixed  zoophyte,  but  a  free  swimming  animal. 

*  Ciiwiiniuhirid  ln'.rt/r(t.  t  Ciiiidin  dinmcu. 


138  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

And  in  the  mean  while,  among  this  animal 
forest,  grows  a  vegetable  one  of  delicatest  sea- 
weeds, green  and  brown  and  crimson,  whose 
office  is,  by  their  everlasting  breath,  to  reoxy- 
genate  the  impure  water,  and  render  it  fit  once 
more  to  be  breathed  by  the  higher  animals  who 
swim  or  creep  around. 

Mystery  of  mysteries !  Let  us  jest  no  more, 
—  Heaven  forgive  us  if  we  have  jested  too  much 
on  so  simple  a  matter  as  that  poor  spider-crab, 
taken  out  of  the  lobster-pots,  and  left  to  die  at 
the  bottom  of  the  boat,  because  his  more  aristo- 
cratic cousins  of  the  blue  and  purple  armor  will 
not  enter  the  trap  while  he  is  within. 

I  am  not  aware  whether  the  surmise,  that 
these  tiny  zoophytes  help  to  purify  the  water 
by  exhaling  oxygen  gas,  has  yet  been  verified. 
The  infusorial  animalcules  do  so,  reversing  the 
functions  of  animal  life,  and  instead  of  evolving 
carbonic  acid  gas,  as  other  animals  do,  evolve 
pure  oxygen.  So,  at  least,  says  Liebig,  who 
states  that  he  found  a  small  piece  of  matchwood, 
just  extinguished,  burst  out  again  into  a  flame 
on  being  immersed  in  the  bubbles  given  out  by 
these  living  atomies. 

I    myself  should    be   inclined    to   doubt   that 


THE   ■WONDERS    OF    THE    SHORE.  139 

this  is  the  case  with  zoophytes,  having  found 
water  in  which  they  were  growing  (unless,  of 
course,  sea-weeds  were  present)  to  be  peculiarly 
ready  to  become  foul :  but  it  is  difficult  to  say 
whether  this  is  owing  to  their  deoxygenating  the 
water  while  alive,  like  other  animals,  or  to  the 
fact  that  it  is  very  rare  to  get  a  specimen  of 
zoophyte  in  which  a  large  number  of  the  polypes 
Iiave  not  been  killed  in  the  transit  home,  or  at 
least  so  far  knocked  about,  that  (in  the  Anthozoa, 
which  are  far  the  most  abundant)  the  polype  — 
or  rather  living  mouth,  for  it  is  little  more  —  is 
thrown  off  to  decay,  pending  the  growth  of  a 
fresh  one  in  the  same  cell. 

But  all  tlie  sea-weeds,  in  common  with  other 
vegetables,  perform  this  function  continually,  and 
thus  maintain  the  water  in  which  they  grew  in  a 
state  fit  to  support  animal  life. 

Tliis  fact,  first  advanced  by  Priestley  and 
Ingenliousz,  and,  though  doubted  by  the  great 
Kliis,  satisfactorily  ascertained  by  Professor 
Daubcny,  Mr.  Ward,  Dr.  Johnston,  and  INIr. 
Warington,  gives  an  answer  to  the  (jucstion, 
which  I  hope  has  ere  now  arisen  in  the  minds 
of  some  of  my  readers. 

How   is    it    possible  to  sec  these  wonders  at 


liO  GLAUCLS  ;    OK, 

home  ?  Beautiful  and  instructive  as  they  may 
be,  can  they  be  meant  for  any  but  dwellers  by 
the  sea-side  ?  Nay  more,  even  to  them  must  not 
the  glories  of  the  water-world  be  always  more 
momentary  than  those  of  the  rainbow,  a  mere  Fata 
Morgana  which  breaks  up  and  vanishes  before  the 
eyes  ?  If  there  were  but  some  method  of  making 
a  miniature  sea-world  for  a  few  days  ;  much  more 
of  keeping  one  with  us  when  far  inland. 

This  desideratum  has  at  last  been  filled  up ; 
and  science  has  shown,  as  usual,  that  by  simply 
obeying  Nature  we  may  conquer  her,  even  so  far 
as  to  have  our  miniature  sea,  of  artificial  salt- 
water, filled  with  living  plants  and  sea-weeds, 
maintaining  each  other  in  perfect  health,  and 
each  following,  as  far  as  is  possible  in  a  confined 
space,  its  natural  habits. 

To  Dr.  Johnston  is  due,  as  far  as  is  known, 
the  honor  of  the  first  accomplishment  of  this 
as  of  a  hundred  other  zoological  triumphs.  As 
early  as  1842,  he  proved  to  himself  the  vegetable 
nature  of  the  common  pink  coralUne,  which 
fringes  every  rock-pool,  by  keeping  it  for  eight 
weeks  in  unchanged  salt-water,  without  any 
putrefaction  ensuing.  The  ground,  of  course, 
on  which  the  proof  rested  in  this  case  was,  that 


THE    "WOXDEHS    OF    THE    SHORE.  141 

if  the  coralline  were,  as  had  often  been  thought, 
a  zoophyte,  the  water  would  become  corrupt,  and 
poisonous  to  the  life  of  the  small  animals  in  the 
same  jar ;  and  that  its  remaining  fresh  argued 
that  the  coralline  had  reoxygenated  it  from  time 
to  time,  and  was  therefore  a  vegetable. 

In  1850,  Mr.  Robert  Warington  communicated 
to  the  Chemical  Society  the  result  of  a  year's 
experiments,  "  On  the  Adjustment  of  the  Re- 
lations between  the  Animal  and  Vegetable 
Kingdoms,  by  which  the  vital  Functions  of  both 
are  permanently  maintained."  The  law  which 
his  experiments  verified  was  the  same  as  that  on 
which  ;Mr.  "Ward,  in  1842,  founded  his  invaluable 
proposal  for  increasing  the  purity  of  the  air  in 
large  towns,  by  planting  trees,  and  cultivating 
flowers  in  rooms,  that  the  animal  and  vegetable 
respirations  might  counterbalance  each  other  ;  the 
aniinal'.-i  blood  being  [)urifif'd  by  the  oxygen  given 
off  by  the  plants,  the  plants  fed  by  the  carbonic 
acid  breathed  out  by  the  animals. 

On  the  same  principle,  Mr.  "Waringlon  first 
kfi)t  for  many  niontlis,  in  a  vase  of  unchanged 
water,  two  small  gold-fi.^h  and  a  plant  of  Vallis- 
nerin  .spiralis  ;  ami  two  years  afterwards  began 
a  similar  experiment  with  i^ea-water,  weeds,  and 


142  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

anemones,  wliich  were,  at  last,  as  successful  as 
the  former  ones.  Mr,  Gosse  had,  in  the  mean 
while,  with  tolerable  success,  begun  a  similar 
method,  unaware  of  what  Mr.  Warington  had 
done ;  and  now  the  beautiful  and  curious  exhib- 
ition of  fresh  and  salt-water  tanks,  opened  last 
year  in  the  Zoological  Gardens  in  London,  bids 
fair  to  be  copied  in  every  similar  institution,  and 
we  hope  in  many  private  houses,  throughout  the 
kingdoms. 

To  this  subject  Mr.  Gosse's  last  book,  "  The 
Aquarium,"  is  principally  devoted,  though  it 
contains,  besides,  sketches  of  coast  scenery,  in 
his  usual  charming  style,  and  descriptions  of 
rare  sea-animals,  with  wise  and  godly  reflections 
thereon.  One  great  object  of  interest  in  the 
book  is  the  last  chapter,  which  treats  fully  of  the 
making  and  stocking  these  salt-water  "Aquaria  "  ; 
and  the  various  beautifully  colored  plates,  which 
are,  as  it  were,  sketches  from  the  interior  of 
tanks,  are  well  fitted  to  excite  the  desire  of  all 
readers  to  possess  such  gorgeous  living  pictures, 
if  as  nothing  else,  still  as  drawing-room  ornaments, 
flower-gardens  which  never  wither,  fairy  lakes 
of  perpetual  calm  which  no  storm  blackens, — 

oi/T   iv  dfpei,  ovT   eV  onaprj. 


THE    ■SVOKDEKS    OF    THE    SHOUE.  143 

Those  who  have  never  seen  one  of  them  can 
never  imagine  (and  neither  Mr.  Gosse's  pencil 
nor  our  clumsy  words  can  ever  describe  to  them) 
the  gorgeous  coloring  and  the  grace  and  delicacy 
of  form  which  these  subaqueous  landscapes  ex- 
hibit. 

As  for  coloring,  —  the  only  bit  of  color  which 
I  can  remember  even  faintly  resembling  them, 
(for  though  Correggio's  Magdalene  may  rival 
them  in  greens  and  blues,  yet  even  he  has  no 
such  crimsons  and  purples,)  is  the  Adoration  of 
the  Shepherds,  by  that  "  prince  of  colorists," 
Palma  Vecchio,  which  hangs  on  the  left-hand  side 
of  Lord  Ellcsmcre's  great  gallery.  But  as  for  the 
forms,  —  where  shall  we  see  their  like  ?  Where, 
amid  miniature  forests  as  fantastic  as  those  of 
the  tropics,  animals  whose  shapes  outvie  the 
wildest  dreams  of  the  old  German  ghost-painters 
which  cover  tlie  walls  of  the  galleries  of  Brussels 
or  Antwerp  ?  And  yet  the  uncouthest  has  some 
(juaint  beauty  of  its  own,  wliilc  most  —  the  star- 
fishes and  anemones,  for  example  —  are  nothing 
but  beauty.  Tlie  Ijrilliant  plates  in  Mr.  Gosse's 
"  Aquarium "  give,  after  all,  but  a  meagi'c 
picture  of  the  reality,  as  it  may  be  seen  either 
in   his    study,     or     in     the     tank-house;    at    tlur 


144  GLAUCUS  ;    OK, 

Zoological  Gardens ;  and  as  it  may  be  ^^cen 
also  by  an}^  one  who  will  follow  carefully  the 
directions  given  at  the  end  of  his  book,  stock 
a  glass  vase  with  such  common  things  as  he 
may  find  in  an  hour's  search  at  low  tide, 
and  so  have  an  opportunity  of  seeing  how 
truly  Mr.  Gosse  says,  in  his  valuable  preface, 
that  — 

"  The  habits  "  (and  he  might  well  have  added, 
the  marvellous  beauty)  "  of  animals  will  never 
be  thoroughly  known  till  they  are  observed  in 
detail.  Nor  is  it  sufficient  to  mark  them  with 
attention  now  and  then  ;  they  must  be  closely 
watched,  their  various  actions  carefully  noted, 
their  behavior  under  different  circumstances, 
and  especially  those  movements  which  seem  to 
us  mere  vagaries,  undirected  by  any  suggestible 
motive  or  cause,  well  examined.  A  rich  fruit 
of  result,  often  new  and  curious  and  unexpected, 
will,  I  am  sure,  reward  any  one  who  studies 
living  animals  in  this  way.  The  most  interest- 
ing parts,  by  far,  of  published  Natural  History 
are  those  minute,  but  graphic  particulars,  which 
have  been  gathered  up  by  an  attentive  watching 
of  individual  animals." 

Mr.  Gosse's  own  books,  certainly,  give  proof 


THE    "WOXDEKS    OF    THE    SHORE.  145 

enough  of  this.  We  need  only  direct  the 
reader  to  his  exquisitely  humorous  account  of" 
the  ways  and  -works  of  a  captive  soldier-crab,* 
to  show  them  how  much  there  is  to  be  seen,  and 
how  full  nature  is  also  of  that  ludicrous  element 
of  which  we  spoke  above.  And,  indeed,  it  is  in 
this  form  of  Natural  History :  not  in  mere  classi- 
fication, and  the  finding  out  of  names,  and  quar- 
rellings  as  to  the  iirst  discovery  of  that  beetle  or 
this  butter-cup, — too  common,  alas  !  among  mere 
closet-collectors,  —  "  endless  genealogies,"  to  apply 
St.  Paul's  words  by  no  means  irreverently  or 
fancifully,  "which  do  but  gender  strife";  —  not 
in  these  pedantries  is  that  moral  training  to  be 
found,  for  Avhich  we  have  been  lauding  the  study 
of  Natural  History:  but  in  healthful  walks  and 
voyages  out  of  doors,  and  in  careful  and  patient 
watching  of  the  living  animals  and  plants  at 
home,  with  an  observaticjn  sliarpened  by  practice, 
and  a  temper  calmed  by  the  continual  practice 
of  the  naturalist's  first  virtues,  —  i)ntience  and 
perseverance. 

Practical  directions  for  forming  an  "  Aqua- 
rium "  may  be  found  in  Mr.  Gosse's  book  bear- 
ing  that   name,  at   pp.   101,  255,  ct  scq.  ;  and 

*  Aqunrium,  p.  103. 
10 


14C  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

those  who  wish  to  carry  out  the  notion  thor- 
oughly cannot  do  better  than  buy  his  book,  and 
take  their  choice  of  the  many  different  forms  of 
vase,  with  rockwork,  fountains,  and  other  pretty 
devices  which  he  describes. 

But  the  many,  even  if  they  have  Mr.  Gosse's 
book,  will  be  rather  inchned  to  begin  with  a  small 
attempt ;  especially  as  they  are  probably  half 
sceptical  of  the  possibility  of  keeping  sea-animals 
inland  without  changing  the  water.  A  few 
simple  directions,  therefore,  will  not  come  amiss 
here.  They  shall  be  such  as  any  one  can  put 
into  practice,  who  goes  down  to  stay  in  a 
lodging-house  at  the  most  cockney  of  watering- 
places. 

Buy  at  any  glass-shop  a  cylindrical  glass  jar, 
some  six  inches  in  diameter  and  ten  high,  which 
will  cost  you  from  three  to  four  shillings ;  wash 
it  clean,  and  fill  it  with  clean  salt-water,  dipped 
out  of  any  pool  among  the  rocks,  only  looking 
first  to  see  that  there  is  no  dead  fish  or  other 
evil  matter  in  the  said  pool,  and  that  no  stream 
from  the  land  runs  into  it.  If  you  choose  to 
take  the  trouble  to  dip  up  the  water  over  a  boat's 
side,  so  much  the  better. 

So  much  for  your  vase  ;  now  to  stock  it. 


THE    -WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  147 

Go  down  at  low  spring-tide  to  the  nearest 
ledge  of  rocks,  and  with  a  hammer  and  chisel 
chip  off  a  few  pieces  of  stone  covered  with  grow- 
ing sea-weed.  Avoid  the  common  and  coarser 
kinds  (fuci)  which  cover  the  surface  of  rocks ; 
for  they  give  out  under  water  a  slime  which  will 
foul  your  tank ;  but  choose  the  more  delicate 
species  which  fringe  the  edges  of  every  pool  at 
low  water  mark ;  the  pink  coralline,  the  dark 
purple  ragged  dulse  (lihodi/menia),  the  Carrageen 
moss  {Chondnis),  and,  above  all,  the  commonest 
of  all,  the  delicate  green  Ulva,  which  you  will 
see  growing  everywhere  in  wrinkled  fan-shaped 
sheets,  as  thin  as  the  finest  silver-paper.  The 
smallest  bits  of  stone  are  sufficient,  provided  the 
sea-weeds  have  hold  of  them ;  for  they  have  no 
real  roots,  but  adhere  by  a  small  disc,  deriving 
no  nourishment  from  the  rock,  but  only  from  the 
water.  Take  care,  meanwhile,  tliat  there  be  as 
little  as  possible  on  the  stone  beside  the  weed 
itself.  Especially  scrape  off  any  small  sponges, 
and  see  that  no  worms  have  made  their  twining 
tubes  of  sand  among  the  wccd-stcms  ;  if  they 
have,  drag  them  out;  for  they  will  surely  die, 
and  as  surely  sj)oil  all  by  sulphuretted  hydrogen, 
blackness,  and  evil  smells. 


148  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

Put  your  weeds  into  your  tank,  and  settle  them 
at  the  bottom ;  which  last  some  say  should  be 
covered  with  a  layer  of  pebbles :  but  let  the 
beginner  leave  it  as  bare  as  possible;  for  the 
pebbles  only  tempt  cross-grained  annelids  to 
crawl  under  them,  die,  and  spoil  all  by  decaying : 
whereas  if  the  bottom  of  the  vase  is  bare,  you 
can  see  a  sickly  or  dead  inhabitant  at  once,  and 
take  him  out  (which  you  must  do)  instantly. 
Let  your  weeds  stand  quietly  in  the  vase  a  day 
or  two  before  you  put  in  any  live  animals ;  and 
even  then,  do  not  put  any  in  if  the  water  does 
not  appear  perfectly  clear :  but  lift  out  the  weeds, 
and  renew  the  water  ere  you  replace  them. 

Now  for  the  live  stock.  Lx  the  crannies  of 
every  rock  you  will  find  sea-anemones  (Actinia;)  ; 
and  a  dozen  of  these  only  will  be  enough  to 
convert  your  little  vase  into  the  most  brilliant 
of  living  flower-gardens.  There  they  hang  upon 
the  under  side  of  the  ledges,  apparently  mere 
rounded  lumps  of  jelly :  one  is  of  a  dark  purple 
dotted  with  green ;  another  of  a  rich  chocolate  ; 
another  of  a  delicate  ohve ;  another  sienna- 
yellow  ;  another  all  but  white.  Take  them  from 
their  rock  ;  you  can  do  it  easily  by  slipping 
under  them  your  finger-nail,  or  the  edge  of  a 


THE    -SVONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  149 

pewter  spoon.     Take  care  to  tear  the  sucking 

base  as  little  as  possible  (though  a  small  rent 

they   will   dam   for   themselves  in  a  few  days, 

easily  enough),  and  drop  them  into  a  basket  of 

wet  sea-weed ;  when  you  get  home,  turn  them 

into   a  dish   full  of  water   and  leave  them  for 

the  night,  and  go  to  look  at  them  to-morrow. 

What  a  change  !     The  dull  lumps  of  jelly  have 

taken  root  and  flowered  during  the  night,  and 

your   dish   is    filled   from   side   to    side    with    a 

bouquet  of  chrysanthemums  ;  each  has  expanded 

into   a   hundred-petalled    flower,   crimson,   pink, 

purple,   or   orange ;    touch   one,    and   it   shrinks 

together  like  a  sensitive  plant,  disjilaying  at  the 

root  of  the   petals  a  ring   of  brilliant  turquoise 

beads.       That    is    the    commonest    of    all    the 

Actiniai    {Mesemhnjantheiniim)  ;    you    may   have 

him  when  and  where  you  will :  but  if  you   will 

search   those   rocks   somewhat    closer,   you   will 

find  even  more  gorgeous  species  than  him.     See 

in    that   pool   some    dozen    noble    ones,    in    full 

bloom,  and  rpiitc  six  inches  across,  some  of  them. 

If  their  cousins  whom  wo  found  just  now  were 

like    chrysanthemums,    these    are    like     quilled 

dahliius.     Tiicir  arms  are  stouter  and  shorter  in 

proportion    than    tlio,=r-    of   the    last    species,  but 


150  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

their  color  is  equally  brilliant.  One  is  a  bril- 
liant blood-red  ;  another  a  delicate  sea-blue, 
striped  with  pink ;  but  most  have  the  disc  and 
the  innumerable  arms  striped  and  ringed  with 
various  shades  of  gray  and  brown.  Shall  we 
get  them?  By  all  means,  if  we  can.  Touch 
one.  Wliere  is  he  now  ?  Gone  ?  Vanished  into 
ah",  or  into  stone?  Not  quite.  You  see  that 
knot  of  sand  and  broken  shell  lying  on  the  rock, 
where  your  dahlia  was  one  moment  ago.  Touch 
it,  and  you  will  find  it  leathery  and  clastic.  That 
is  all  which  remains  of  the  live  dahlia.  Never 
mind  ;  get  your  finger  into  the  crack  under  him, 
work  him  gently  but  firmly  out,  and  take  him 
home,  and  he  will  be  as  happy  and  as  gorgeous 
as  ever  to-morrow. 

Let  your  Actiniae  stand  for  a  day  or  two  in 
the  dish,  and  then,  picking  out  the  liveliest  and 
handsomest,  detach  them  once  more  from  their 
hold,  drop  them  into  your  vase,  right  them  with 
a  bit  of  stick,  so  that  the  sucking  base  is 
downwards,  and  leave  them  to  themselves 
thenceforth. 

These  two  species  (Jilesemhryanthemum  and 
Crassicornis)  are  quite  beautiful  enough  to  give 
a  beginner  amusement :  but  there  are  two  others 


THE   WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  151 

which  are  not  uncommon,  and  of  such  exceeding 
loveliness,  that  it  is  worth  while  to  take  a  little 
trouble  to  get  them.  The  one  is  Bellis,  the  sea- 
daisy,  of  which  there  is  an  excellent  description 
and  plates  in  Mr.  Gosse's  "  Rambles  in  Devon," 
pp.  24  -  32. 

It  is  common  at  Ilfracombe,  and  at  Torquay  ; 
and  indeed  everywhere  where  there  are  cracks 
and  small  holes  in  limestone  or  slate  rock.  In 
these  holes  it  fixes  its  base,  and  expands  its 
delicate  brown-gray  star-like  flowers  on  the 
surface  :  but  it  must  be  chipped  out  with 
hammer  and  chisel,  at  the  expense  of  much 
dirt  and  patience  ;  for  the  moment  it  is  touched 
it  contracts  deep  into  tlie  rock,  and  all  that  is 
left  of  the  daisy  flower,  some  two  or  three  inches 
across,  is  a  blue  knot  of  half  the  size  of  a 
marble.  IJut  it  will  cx[)and  again,  after  a  day 
or  two  of  ca[)tivity,  and  well  repay  all  the 
trouble  which  it  has  cost. 

The  other  is  JJianthns ;  which  you  may  find 
adhering  to  fresh  oysters  in  any  dredger  or 
trawler's  skiff,  a  lengthened  mass  of  olive,  pale 
rose,  or  snow-wliitc  jelly.  The  rose  and  the 
white  are  the  more  beautiful ;  the  very  maiden 
fiuccns  of  all   the  beautiful   tribe.     If  you   find 


152  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

one,  clear  the  shell  on  Avliich  it  grows  of  every- 
thing else  (you  may  leave  the  oyster  inside  if 
you  "vvill),  and  watch  it  expand  under  water  into 
a  furbelowed  flower,  furred  with  innumerable 
delicate  tentacula ;  *  and  in  the  centre,  a  mouth 
of  the  most  brilliant  orange ;  altogether  one  of 
the  loveliest  gems,  in  the  opinion  of  him  who 
writes,  with  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  bedeck 
his  lower  world. 

But  you  will  want  more  than  these  anemones, 
both  for  your  own  amusement  and  for  the 
health  of  your  tank.  Microscopic  animals  will 
breed,  and  will  also  die  ;  and  you  need  for  them 
some  such  scavenger  as  our  poor  friend  Squinado, 
to  whom  you  were  introduced  a  few  pages  back. 
Turn,  then,  a  few  stones  which  lie  piled  on  each 
other  at  extreme  low-water  mark,  and  five 
minutes'  search  will  give  you  the  very  animal 
you  want, — a  little  crab,  of  a  dingy  russet  above, 
and  on  the  underside  like  smooth  porcelain.  His 
back  is  quite  flat,  and  so  are  his  large  angular 
fringed  claws,  which,  when  he  folds  them  up,  lie 
in  the  same  plane  with  his  shell,  and  fit  neatly 
into  its  edges.  Compact  little  rogue  that  he  is, 
made  especially  for  sideling  in  and  out  of  cracks 

*  Sec  Gosse's  Afjuarium,  Plate  V.  p.  192. 


THE   ATONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  153 

and  crannies,  he  carries  with  him  such  an 
apparatus  of  combs  and  brushes  as  Isidor  or 
Floris  never  dreamed  of;  Avith  which  he  sweeps 
out  of  the  sea-water  at  every  moment  shoals  of 
minute  animalcules,  and  sucks  them  into  his  tiny- 
mouth.  Mr.  Gosse  will  tell  you  more  of  this 
marvel,  in  his  Aquarium,  p.  48. 

lisext,  your  sea-weeds,  if  they  thrive  as  they 
ought  to  do,  will  sow  their  minute  spores  in 
millions  around  them ;  and  these,  as  they  vege- 
tate, will  form  a  green  film  on  the  inside  of  the 
glass,  spoiling  your  prospect ;  you  may  rub  it  off 
for  yourself,  if  you  will,  with  a  rag  fastened  to 
a  stick,  but  if  you  wish  at  once  to  save  yourself 
trouble,  and  to  see  how  all  emergencies  in  nature 
are  provided  for,  you  will  set  three  or  four  live 
shells  to  do  it  for  you,  and  to  keep  your  sub- 
aqueous lawn  close  mown. 

That  last  word  is  no  figure  of  speech.  Look 
among  the  beds  of  sea-weed  for  a  few  of  the 
bright  yellow  or  green  sea-snails  (Nerita),  or 
Conical  Tops  {Trorhns),  especially  (hat  beautiful 
pink  one  spotted  willi  brown  (Zizip/iinus), 
which  you  are  sure  to  find  about  s-baded  rock- 
ledges  at  dead  low  tide,  and  put  tliem  into  your 
aquarium.      For    the    present,    they    will    only 


154  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

nibble  the  green  ulva?,  but  when  the  fihn  of 
young  weed  begins  to  foi'm,  you  will  see  it 
mown  off  every  morning  as  fast  as  it  grows,  in 
little  semicircular  sweeps,  just  as  if  a  fairy's 
scythe  had  been  at  work  during  the  night. 

And  a  scythe  has  been  at  work  ;  none  other 
than  the  tongue  of  the  little  shell-fish ;  a  descrip- 
tion of  its  extraordinary  mechanism  (too  long  to 
quote  here,  but  which  is  well  worth  reading) 
may  be  found  in  Gosse's  Aquarium.* 

A  prawn  or  two,  and  a  few  minute  star-fish, 
will  make  your  aquarium  complete  ;  though  you 
may  add  to  it  endlessly,  as  one  glance  at  the 
salt-water  tanks  of  the  Zoological  Gardens  and 
the  strange  and  beautiful  forms  which  they  con- 
tain will  prove  to  you  sufficiently. 

You  have  two  more  enemies  to  guard  against ; 
dust  and  heat.  If  the  surface  of  the  water  be- 
comes clogged  with  dust,  the  communication  be- 
tween it  and  the  life-giving  oxygen  of  the  air  is 
cut  off;  and  then  your  animals  are  liable  to  die, 
for  the  very  same  reason  that  fish  die  in  a  pond 
which  is  long  frozen  over,  unless  a  hole  be  broken 
in  the  ice  to  admit  the  air.  You  must  guard 
against  this  by  occasional    stirring  of  the  sur- 

*P.  34. 


THE   TrONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  155 

face,  (it  should  be  done  once  a  day,  if  possible,) 
and  by  keeping  on  a  cover.     A  piece  of  muslin 
tied  over  will  do  ;  but  a  better  defence  is  a  plate 
of  glass,  raised  on   wire  some  half  inch   above 
the  edge,   so  as   to   admit   the   air.     I   am   not 
sure   that   a   sheet  of   brown   paper    laid  over 
the   vase  is  not  the   best  of  all,  because  that 
by  its   shade  also  guards  against  the  next  evil, 
which   is   heat.     Against  that  you   must  guard 
by  putting  a  curtain   of  muslin   or  oiled   paper 
between   the   vase  and    the   sun,  if  it  be  very 
fierce,  or  simply  (for  simple  expedients  are  best) 
by  laying  a  handkerchief  over  it  till  the  heat  is 
past.     But  if  you  leave  your  vase  in  a  sunny 
window  long  enough  to  let  the  water  get  tepid, 
all  is  over  with  your  pets.     Half  an  hour's  boil- 
ing may  frustrate  the  care  of  weeks.     And  yet, 
on  the  other  liand,   light  you  must   have,   and 
you  can  hardly  have  too  much.     Some  animals 
certainly  prefer  shade,  and  hide  in  the  darkest 
crannies ;   and   for   them,    if   your    aquarium    is 
large  enough,  you  must  provide  shade,    by   ar- 
ranging the  bits  of  stone  into  piles  and  caverns. 
But  without  light,  your   sea-weeds  will   neither 
thrive,  nor  keep  the  water  sweet.     With  plenty 
of  light  you  will  sec,  to  quote  Mr.  Gosse   once 


156  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

more,*  "  thousands  of  tiny  globules  foi-ming  on 
every  plant,  and  even  all  over  the  stones,  where 
the  infant  vegetation  is  beginning  to  grow ;  and 
these  globules  presently  rise  in  rapid  succession 
to  the  surface  all  over  the  vessel,  and  this  pro- 
cess goes  on  uninterruptedly  as  long  as  the  rays 
of  the  sun  are  uninterrupted. 

"  Now  these  globules  consist  of  pure  oxygen, 
given  out  by  the  plants  under  the  stimulus  of 
light ;  and  to  this  oxygen  the  animals  in  the 
tank  owe  their  life.  The  difference  between  the 
profusion  of  oxygen-bubbles  produced  on  a  sunny 
day,  and  the  paucity  of  those  seen  on  a  dark, 
cloudy  day,  or  in  a  northern  aspect,  is  very 
marked."  Choose,  therefore,  a  south  or  east 
window,  but  draw  down  the  blind,  or  throw  a 
handkerchief  over  all  if  the  heat  become  fierce. 
The  water  should  always  feel  cold  to  your  hand, 
let  the  temperature  outside  be  what  it  may. 

Next,  you  must  make  up  for  evaporation  by 
fresh  water.  A  very  little  will  suffice,  as  often  as 
in  summer  you  find  the  water  in  your  vase  sink 
below  its  original  level,  and  prevent  the  water 
from  getting  too  salt.  For  the  salts,  remember, 
do  not  evaporate  with  the  water,  and  if  you  left 

*  P.  259. 


THE   WOKDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  157 

the  vase  in  the  sun  for  a  lew  weeks,  it  would 
become  a  mere  brine-pan. 

But  how  will  you  move  your  treasures  up  to 
town  ? 

The  simplest  plan  which  I  have  found  success- 
ful is  an  earthen  jar.  You  may  buy  them  with 
a  cover  which  screws  on  with  two  iron  clasps.  If 
you  do  not  find  such,  a  piece  of  oilskin  tied  over 
the  mouth  is  enough.  But  do  not  fill  the  jar  full 
of  water ;  leave  about  a  quarter  of  the  contents 
in  empty  air,  which  the  water  may  absorb,  and  so 
keep  itself  fresh.  And  any  pieces  of  stone,  or 
oysters,  Avhich  you  send  up,  hang  by  a  string  from 
the  mouth,  that  they  may  not  hurt  tender  animals 
by  rolling  about  the  bottom.  "With  these  simple 
precautions,  anything  which  you  are  likely  to  find 
will  well  endure  forty-eight  hours  of  travel. 

"What  if  the  water  fails  after  all  ? 

Then  Mr.  Gossc's  artificial  sea-water  will  form 
a  perfect  substitute.  You  may  buy  the  rc(iuisitc 
salts  (for  there  are  more  salts  than  "  salt "  in  sea- 
water)  from  any  chemist  to  whom  ]\Ir.  Gossc  has 
intrusted  his  discovery,  and,  according  (o  his  di- 
rections, make  sea-water  fi)r  yourself.* 

*  Mr.  W.  r.olfon,  Chemist,  yf  HO  Ilulboni  Bnm,  London, 
will  furnish  the  materials. 


158  GLAUCUS  ;   OR, 

One  more  hint  before  we  part.  If,  after  all, 
you  are  not  going  down  to  the  sea-side  this  year, 
and  have  no  ojiportunities  of  testing  the  "  won- 
ders of  the  shore,"  you  may  still  study  Natural 
History  in  your  own  drawing-room,  by  looking  a 
little  into  "  the  wonders  of  the  pond." 

I  am  not  jesting ;  a  fresh-water  aquarium, 
though  by  no  means  as  beautiful  as  a  salt- 
water one,  is  even  more  easily  established.  A 
glass  jar,  floored  with  two  or  tliree  inches  of 
pond-mud  (which  should  be  covered  with  fine 
gravel  to  prevent  the  mud  washing  up) ;  a 
specimen  of  each  of  two  water-plants  which 
you  may  buy  now  at  any  good  shop  in  Covent 
Garden,  ValUsneria  spiralis  (which  is  said  to 
give  to  the  canvas-backed  duck  of  America  its 
peculiar  richness  of  flavor),  and  Anacharis 
alsinastrum,  that  magical  weed  which,  lately 
introduced  from  Canada  among  timber,  has 
multiplied,  self-sown,  to  so  prodigious  an  extent, 
that  it  bids  fair  in  a  few  years  to  choke  the 
navigation  not  only  of  our  canals  and  fen-rivers, 
but  of  the  Thames  itself:  —  these  (in  themselves, 
from  the  transparency  of  their  circulation,  in- 
teresting microscopic  objects)  for  oxygen-breed- 
ing vegetables ;  and  for  animals,  the  pickings  of 


THE  -WOXDERS  OF  THE  SHORE.     159 

any  pond.  A  minnow  or  tAvo ;  an  eft ;  some  of 
those  caddis-baits  (walking  tubes  of  straw,  sticks, 
and  shells)  and  water-crickets,  which  you  may 
find  under  any  stone ;  a  few  of  the  dehcate  pond- 
snails  (unless  they  devour  your  Vallisneria  too 
rapidly)  ;  water-beetles,  of  activity  inconceivable ; 
and  that  wondrous  bug,  the  Notonecta,  who  lies 
on  his  back  all  day,  rowing  about  his  boat- 
shaped  body,  with  one  long  pair  of  oars,  in  search 
of  animalcules,  and,  tlie  moment  the  lights  are 
out,  turns  head  over  heels,  rights  himself,  and, 
opening  a  pair  of  handsome  wings,  starts  to  fly 
about  the  dark  room  in  company  with  his  friend 
the  water-beetle,  and  (I  suspect)  catch  flies,  and 
then  slips  back  demurely  into  the  water  with 
the  first  streak  of  dawn  ;  —  these  animals,  their 
Iiabits,  their  miraculous  transformations,  as  the 
caddis-baits  appear  at  the  top  of  the  water  as 
alder-flics  and  sedge-flics  {Plmjgancai)  and  the 
water-crickets  as  duns  and  drakes  {Ephemera') 
of  the  most  delicate  beauty,  might  give  many  an 
hour's  quiet  amusement  to  an  invalid,  laid  on  a 
sofa,  or  im[)risone(l  in  a  sick-room,  and  debarred 
from  reading,  unless  by  some  such  means,  any 
page  of  tliat  great  green  book  outside,  whose 
pen  is  the  finger  of  fJod,  whose  covers  arc  the 


160  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

lire  kingdoms  and  the  star  kingdoms,  and  its 
leaves  the  heather-bells,  and  the  polypes  of  the 
sea,  and  the  gnats  above  the  summer  stream. 

And,  now,  how  can  this  desultory  little  treatise 
end  more  usefully  than  in  recommending  a  few 
books  on  Natural  History,  fit  for  the  use  of 
young  people  ?  Not  that  this  list  will  contain 
all  the  best;  but  simply  the  best  of  which  the 
^vriter  knows ;  let,  therefore,  none  feel  aggrieved, 
if,  as  it  may  chance,  opening  these  pages,  they 
find  their  books  omitted. 

First  and  foremost,  certainly,  come  Mr.  Gosse's 
books.  There  is  a  playful  and  genial  spirit  in 
them,  a  brilliant  power  of  word-painting,  com- 
bined with  deep  and  earnest  religious  feeling, 
which  makes  them  as  morally  valuable  as  they 
are  intellectually  interesting.  Since  White's 
"  History  of  Selborne,"  few  or  no  writers  on 
Natural  History,  save  Mr.  Gosse  and  poor  Mr. 
E.  Forbes,  have  had  the  power  of  bringing  out 
the  human  side  of  science,  and  giving  to  seem- 
ingly dry  disquisitions  and  animals  of  the  lowest 
type,  by  little  touches  of  pathos  and  humor, 
that  living  and  personal  interest,  to  bestow  which 
is  generally  the  special  function  of  the  poet :  not 
that  Waterton   and  Jesse  are   not   excellent  in 


THE   WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  IGl 

this  respect,  and  authors  who  should  be  in  every 
boy's  library :  but  they  are  rather  anecdotists 
than  systematic  or  scientific  inquirers  ;  AvhUe 
Mr.  Gosse,  in  his  "  Naturalist  on  the  Shores  of 
Devon,"  his  "  Tour  in  Jamaica,"  and  his  "  Cana- 
dian Naturalist,"  has  done  for  those  three  places 
what  White  did  for  Selborne,  with  all  the 
improved  appliances  of  a  science  which  has 
widened  and  deepened  tenfold  since  White's 
time. 

Miss  Anne  Pratt's  "  Things  of  the  Sea-coast " 
is  excellent ;  and  still  better  is  Professor  Harvey's 
"  Sea-side  Book,"  of  which  it  is  impossible  to 
speak  too  highly ;  and  most  pleasant  it  is  to  see 
a  man  of  genius  and  learning  thus  gathering 
the  bloom  of  his  varied  knowledge,  to  put  it  into 
a  form  equally  suited  to  a  child  and  to  a  savant. 
Seldom,  perhap?,  has  tlierc  been  a  little  book  in 
which  so  vast  a  quantity  of  facts  lias  been  com- 
pressed into  so  small  a  space,  and  yet  told  so 
gracefully,  simply,  without  a  taint  of  pedantry  or 
cumbrousncss,  —  an  excellence  which  is  the  sure 
and  only  mark  of  a  pei-fcct  mastery  of  the 
subject. 

Two  little  "Popular"  Histories,  one  of  Brit- 
ish Zoiiphytcs,  the  other  of  British  Sea-weeds,  by 


102  GLAUCUS  ;    OR, 

Dr.  Landsborougli  (lately  dead  of  cholera,  at 
Saltcoats,  the  scene  of  his  energetic  and  pious 
ministry),  are  very  excellent ;  and  are  furnished, 
too,  with  well-drawn  and  colored  plates,  for  the 
comfort  of  those  to  whom  a  scientific  nomencla- 
ture (as  liable  as  any  other  human  thing  to  be 
faulty  and  obscure)  conveys  but  a  vague  concep- 
tion of  the  objects.  These  may  serve  well  for 
the  beginner,  as  introductions  to  Professor  Har- 
vey's large  work  on  the  British  Alga;,  and  to  the 
new  edition  of  Professor  Johnston's  invaluable 
-'  British  Zoophytes." 

For  general  Zoology  the  best  books  for  begin- 
ners are,  perhaps,  as  an  introduction  to  comjiara- 
tivc  anatomy,  Professor  Rymer  Jones's  "  Animal 
Kingdom " ;  and  for  systematic  Zoology,  Mr. 
Gosse's  four  little  books,  on  Mammals,  Birds, 
Reptiles,  and  Fishes,  published,  with  many  plates, 
by  the  Christian  Knowledge  Society,  at  a  mar- 
vellously cheap  rate.  For  microscopic  animal- 
cules, Miss  Agnes  Catlow's  "  Drops  of  Water " 
will  teach  the  young  more  than  they  will  ever 
remember,  and  serve  as  a  good  introduction  to 
those  teeming  abysses  of  the  unseen  world,  wliich 
must  be  afterwards  traversed  under  the  guidance 
of  Ilassall  and  Ehrenberg. 


THE   "WONDERS    OF   THE    SHORE.  163 

For  Ornithology,  there  is  no  book,  after  all, 
like  dear  old  Bewick,  passe  though  he  may  be  in 
a  scientific  point  of  view.  There  is  a  good  little 
British  Ornithology,  too,  published  in  Sir  W. 
Jardine's  "  Naturalist's  Library,"  and  another  by 
Mr.  Gosse.  And  Mr.  Knox's  "  Ornithological 
Rambles  in  Sussex,"  with  Mr.  St.  John's  "  High- 
land Sports "  and  "  Tour  in  Sutherlandshire," 
are  the  monographs  of  naturalists,  gentlemen, 
and  sportsmen,  which  remind  one  at  every  page 
(and  what  higher  praise  can  one  give  ?)  of 
"White's  "Ilistorj-  of  Selborne."  These  last, 
with  Mr.  Gosse's  "  Canadian  Naturalist,"  and 
his  little  book,  "The  Ocean,"  not  forgetting  Dar- 
win's delightful  "  Voyage  of  the  Beagle  and 
Adventure,"  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  every 
lad  who  is  likely  to  travel  to  our  colonies. 

For  general  Geology,  Professor  Anstcy's  Intro- 
duction is  excellent  ;  while,  as  a  specimen  of 
the  way  in  which  a  single  district  may  be  thor- 
ouglily  worked  out,  and  tlie  universal  method 
of  induction  learnt  from  a  narrow  field  of 
object.*,  what  book  can,  or  perhaps  ever  will, 
compare  with  Mr.  Hugh  Miller's  •*  Old  Red 
Sandstone  "  ? 


1C4  GLAucrs ;  or, 

For  this  last  reason,  I  especially  recommend  to 
the  young  the  Rev.  C.  A.  Johns's  "  Week  at  the 
Lizard,"  as  teaching  a  young  person  how  much 
tliere  is  to  be  seen  and  known  within  a  few 
square  miles  of  the  British  Isles.  But,  indeed, 
all  Mr.  Johns's  books  are  good,  (as  they  are  bound 
to  be,  considering  his  most  accurate  and  varied 
knowledge,)  especially  his  "  Flowers  of  the  Field," 
the  best  cheap  intx'oduction  to  systematic  botany 
which  has  as  yet  appeared.  Trained,  and  all  but 
self-trained,  like  Mr.  Hugh  Miller,  in  a  remote 
and  narrow  field  of  observation,  Mr.  Johns  has 
developed  himself  into  one  of  our  most  acute 
and  persevering  botanists,  and  has  added  many  a 
new  treasure  to  the  Flora  of  these  isles ;  and  one 
person,  at  least,  owes  him  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude 
for  first  lessons  in  scientific  accuracy  and  patience, 
— lessons  taught,  not  dully  and  dryly  at  the  book 
and  desk,  but  livingly  and  genially,  in  adven- 
turous rambles  over  the  bleak  cliffs  and  ferny 
woods  of  the  wild  Atlantic  shore,  — 

"  Where  the  old  fable  of  the  guarded  mount 
Looks  toward  Namancos  and  Bayona's  hold." 

And  so  I  end  this  little  book,  hoping,  even 
praying,  that   it    may   encourage    a    few   more 


THE   WOXDERS    OF   THE    SUORE.  165 

laborers  to  go  forth  into  a  vineyard,  which  those 
who  have  toiled  in  it  know  to  be  full  of  ever- 
fresh  health,  and  wonder,  and  simple  joy,  and 
the  presence  and  the  glory  of  Ilim  whose  name 
is  Love. 


THE    END. 


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